The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Nation's Peril.

Wherefore say unto the Children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm, and with great judgments.—Exodus, VI, 6.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, by
E. A. IRELAND,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

The facts contained in the succeeding pages, have been compiled from authenticated sources, and with especial reference to their truthfulness.

That portion derived from the diary of a gentleman, twelve years a resident of the South, was not originally intended for public circulation; but this, with a variety of other matter obtained from official records, formed the basis of a lecture delivered at Tremont Temple, in the city of Boston, on the evening of March 27th, 1872, and excited a great degree of interest among the people to learn more of the subject-matter treated upon.

Communications relating thereto came in from all parts of the country, and it was decided by the friends of the compiler to present all the facts in convenient form for general circulation, as the best means of complying with this demand.

They are here given with such additions to the original matter, as will enable the general reader more fully to comprehend the origin, rise and progress of the various orders of the Ku Klux Klans, their social and political significance, and their general bearing upon the welfare of the nation at large.

The thrilling stories of outrage and crime herein narrated, are [Pg 4]authenticated beyond the power of refutation.

“Against all such crimes, as well as against incompetency and corruption in office, the power of an intelligent public sentiment and of the courts of justice should be invoked and united; and appealing for patience and forbearance in the North, while time and these powers are doing their work, let us also appeal to the good sense of Southern men, if they sincerely desire to accomplish political reforms through a change in the negro vote. If their theory is true that he votes solidly now with the republican party, and is kept there by his ignorance and by deception, all that is necessary to keep him there is to keep up by their countenance, the Ku Klux Organization. Having the rights of a citizen and a voter, neither of those rights can be abrogated by whipping him. If his political opinions are erroneous, he will not take kindly to the opposite creed when its apostles come to inflict the scourge upon himself, and outrage upon his wife and children. If he is ignorant, he will not be educated by burning his school houses and exiling his teachers. If he is wicked, he will not be made better by banishing to Liberia his religious teachers. If the resuscitation of the State is desired by his labor, neither will be secured by a persecution which depopulates townships, and prevents the introduction of new labor and of capital.”

That these pages may be received in the same spirit of charity and kindly feeling in which they have been penned, is the sincere and earnest wish of

The transition of the social status of the colored classes in the South, from a condition of abject servitude to one of the most enlarged freedom, crowned with that dearest of all rights to the heart of the freeman, the elective franchise, although gradual, and attended with difficulties that have seemed at times almost insurmountable, goes steadily forward, under the hand of a beneficent and all seeing God, who watcheth alike over the just and the unjust, enjoining upon them, in return for his goodness, a strict observance of his commands towards one another.

Human progress in this country, during the past ten years, has taken giant strides, although met by obstacles of a character so formidable as to impose a most extraordinary task upon those engaged in the great work of social reform and the establishment of the rights of all to civil, religious and political liberty, as guaranteed by the Constitution. The spirit of the age is reformatory. Religion, politics, art and the sciences have ever been the subjects of reformation and progression, and by these have been lifted from comparative darkness in the past to the broad fields of light in the more intelligent present. In the grand plan of an all-wise Creator, nothing has been allowed to permanently obstruct the onward march of the races[Pg 6] and nations of the earth; and for the accomplishment of this glorious purpose, no sacrifice, it appears, has been deemed too great that would aid in its fulfillment. The travail and labor of nations, the desolation and destruction of whole communities, and in some instances the entire annihilation of races of men, have been the penalties demanded and paid for their long persistence in the ways of sin and wickedness.

The American Republic has been no exception to the imperative rule. It bore within its folds the crime and curse of slavery, a foul and corroding ulcer that could only be burned out and destroyed by the terrible visitations of fire and the sword, and in the eradication of which all the wisdom of the nation’s greatest counselors, all the terrible enginery of modern warfare, and the skill and persistence of the chosen leaders of the people were to be brought into requisition. A fierce and sanguinary contest of four years’ duration ended, under the hand of God, in the grand triumph of the right; but the war of the rebellion left the South in a state of social disintegration, in which the leading spirits who had fomented the internecine contest assumed to control the masses, and perpetuate under another form, and accomplish by other means, that which had been lost to them in the surrender and disorganization of their armies.

The condition of the South, during the past twelve years, is vividly illustrated in a series of letters written by Mr. Justin Knight, a gentleman of undoubted integrity, a resident of the South during the period referred to, and which are here given in a narrative form for the better convenience of the reader. Speaking of himself and the peculiar circumstances that brought him to the Southern States, Mr. Knight says:

“Born in close proximity to the metropolis of New England, where I received the advantages of a collegiate education, and the religious instruction of parents[Pg 7] who, without bigotry, were opposed to every species of wrong, I early conceived a desire to enter upon the ministry, which I did in 1857, almost immediately after the close of my collegiate life.

My constitution, at no time robust, was entirely inadequate to the labors imposed upon me by the duties of this new position. My health continued gradually to give way until the winter of 1859, when my physician decided that a change of climate was essentially necessary to my well-being, and under his advice I proceeded to Charleston, S. C., and took up my residence with a married sister, then living there in affluent circumstances.

At this peculiar epoch in the history of the country the political atmosphere of the South was literally pestilential. Under the manipulation of skillful, but unscrupulous leaders, whole communities had become imbued with a spirit hostile to the governing powers. They were led to believe that the time for argument had past, and that nothing was now left them, but to make a demand for what they were pleased to consider their inherent rights;—that of keeping their fellow men in bondage—and if this were refused, to declare themselves for war. The portentious clouds of the impending crisis continued gathering thick and fast, and it required no prophet’s eye to discern, or voice to foretell that they must soon burst upon the country in a deluge that could only be stayed by an enormous waste of blood and treasure.

A sojourn of nearly eighteen months among the southern people, and the facilities afforded me from the position occupied by my sister’s family, gave me an unusual opportunity to observe the passing pageant of events. The masses had been gradually worked over to the interests of the more intelligent leaders, until reason and argument ceased further to influence them. They seemed wholly given up to the one idea of slavery,[Pg 8] or war, and they had been led to believe that the first demonstration of organized resistance to the regularly constituted powers, would bring the North at their feet in abject supplication for peace. I was anxious to know how the defiant and belligerent attitude that was being assumed would be received in the land of my birth, and as my health had sufficiently improved to warrant my again returning there, I did so at the earliest opportunity, only to realize that the people of the North were buckling on their armor, with the deep seated purpose of going forth to battle for the right.

There was a significance in all “this busy note of preparation,” that I could fully understand and appreciate. I had seen enough to convince me that nothing but the severest chastisement, administered by the hands of the Lord through the instrumentality of his chosen people, could bring our misguided brethren of the South to a just and proper sense of their duty to God and their fellow-men. They had long “eaten of the bread of wickedness; and drank the wine of violence,” and they had utterly forgotten that “righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people.”

An opportunity was speedily afforded me to accompany a regiment to the field as chaplain, and I soon found myself marching southward with a body of noble men who had been foremost in responding to the call of President Lincoln, to defend the Union and preserve the integrity of the nation. The incidents of the four years of bloody strife that ensued, need not be alluded to here. They were passed by me, in the midst of danger, offering consolation to the dying, caring tenderly for the dead, when circumstances permitted, and coming out of all, through the hand of God, unscathed.

The results aimed at upon the part of the ruling powers, seemed to have been accomplished. The[Pg 9] Proclamation of Emancipation had gone forth from the executive head of the nation, and solid rows of glittering steel had followed it up, and compelled its enforcement. The foulest blot upon the pages of our history as a Republic had been erased, and its down-trodden children liberated from a thraldom more humiliating in design, and wicked in purpose, than that which yoked the children of Israel under the hands of the Egyptian task masters. In them the promise of the Great Jehovah had been verified: “Wherefore:—say unto the Children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians.” The right had been vindicated; the shock of contending armies was over, and the nation waited patiently to see in what condition the contest had left the conquered.

It is my purpose, in these pages, to give the exact facts, “nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.” I shall endeavor neither to exaggerate the history, or conceal the truth. I am aware that the revelations which follow are so terrible in their nature as to almost pass the bounds of belief; that the agonizing scenes herein depicted, and which have been the results of the same demoniac spirit which actuated and prolonged the war, had they been told as occurring among the semi-barbaric nations in the uttermost parts of the earth, might be the more readily received by my countrymen as truthful relations; but which, transpiring at our own doors, within the sound and under the shadow of the Gospel, appear like the mythical creations of a distorted imagination rather than actual revelations from real life.

In the interest of all progress, and for the sake of God and humanity, I would it were so; but the contrary is the fact. Hundreds of living witnesses stand ready to verify the statements under oath. Scores of the unoffending skeletons of gibbeted negroes and whites [Pg 10]attest the solemn truth. The exact localities, the names and residences of the victims, the hour and day, the month and year of their murderous whipping and ignominious death, are given with a fidelity that challenges contradiction, and forms an array of evidence at once incontrovertable and overwhelming.

The ever changing current of events again called me to the South. My sister’s family had been almost destroyed by the death of her husband, who had cast his fortunes with the cause of the rebellion and had paid the penalty with his life, and it was necessary I should aid her in adjusting the affairs of the estate which had been left in a very unsettled condition, and required much time to properly arrange. I was glad of the opportunity thus afforded me to observe the effects of the struggle that had just closed; and prepared my mind to take a calm and dispassionate view of the situation, as became a seeker for the truth who was desirous of arriving at the hidden springs underlying the social crust, with a view to the remedy of the impending evil, if such could be found. I believed in the integrity of the great mass of the people, and could see that they had been deceived and led on to destruction by the ingenious plans of men, skilled in human diplomacy, and having a profound knowledge of the character of the people whom they designed to move for their own wicked purposes.

The spirits of these leaders chafed under the bitter disappointment of defeat. It was apparent they would continue to foster seditions, organize conspiracies against the powers that be, and use every effort to fan into life the dying embers of the “lost cause.” These men controlled certain portions of the local press, and either threw obstacles in the way of the dissemination of proper and just principles, or used the power in their hands to sow the seeds of dissention broadcast throughout the States so lately in insurrection.

[Pg 11]All the misery that had accrued from the war, the families that had been sundered; the blood of loved ones that had watered the various battle-fields of the South, and the bones of beloved kindred that lay whitening there; the numerous sacrifices of wealth, family, and social position that had been made, the property lost and destroyed; the general stagnation and prostration of business, and the feeling of dread and insecurity that followed, were all attributed to the rule of the republican North.

There were mutterings of revenge and breathings of threats and slaughter against the race that had just been raised up out of bondage. Slavery, the former bane and curse of this country, was already dead. Its putrid carcass was no longer of the material things of earth, but its ghostly spirit still stalked abroad among its mourners to keep alive the memory of its wicked example in the minds of those who, born and reared in the folds of its garments, and nurtured at its breast, could not cast aside their early prejudices and banish from their hearts, its former evil influences. They no longer remembered that “the way of the Lord is strength to the upright,” and that “destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity.” Thousands of misguided and misdirected men cherished in their bosoms a spirit of animosity toward those who had aided with their blood and money in the liberation of the slave; and it was this very spirit of hatred which had in a manner demoralized the South and created a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity among men of capital, that proved a serious barrier to their investing in our railroads and factories, and the improvement of our lands; and, as a natural sequence, retarded our social and financial progress.

Society at this time was divided into several classes. Many who were disposed to accept and abide by the new order of things, dared not express their real [Pg 12]sentiments from fear of social and political ostracism. Men of intelligence and education, but who had allowed the thirst for power and political preferment to absorb and swallow up the promptings of their better nature, had begun the process of gaining over to their interests the very worst elements in the social circle beneath them, with a view to carrying out their unholy designs. This class in turn, and under the management of the more intelligent, intimidated still another class and compelled them to join in a crusade that had for its objects the most infamous ends ever attempted to be gained by men. A complete connection had thus been formed, reaching from the unscrupulous leaders, to the masses, and embracing in its chain every class of society needed for the success of the general plan.

The standard bearers of the devil himself, coming direct from the lowest depths of the infernal regions, with seething vials of wrath and an earnest intention to do the bidding of their master, could scarcely have set on foot a conspiracy more damnable than this. Men, women and children were to be included in the portending storm, religion and human decency were to be outraged, the law of the land and its administrators defied, and justice scoffed at in the pillory. The ordinary safe-guards to the social well being of the community were to be swept away whenever they became inimical to the designs and objects of the unholy alliance thus formed. Men were to be banded together and bound by oaths that ignored all others and made these supreme. Where the life or liberty of one of the brotherhood was in jeopardy, he was to be saved at all hazards. Perjury and subornation of perjury were to over-ride courts of justice and render abortive, any attempt to bring these lawless bands to punishment through their instrumentality. Nothing was to be too sacred for the vandal hands of these marauders who, under the guidance of the more intelligent leaders, were[Pg 13] to go abroad like a consuming flame, until the land, that God had made pre-eminently beautiful for the abode of peace and contentment, had been smitten with a scourge of fire and blood, and their own wicked purposes had been accomplished. It seemed as if the voice of the Lord had again spoken through the prophet Ezekiel, “say to the forest of the South, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree; the flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the South to the North shall be burned therein.”

It was to be a dual struggle. The colored races were to be subjugated or destroyed; and the humane efforts of the Government and the Administration to restore peace and harmony, and commercial prosperity, and to give to the citizens, of every creed and color, free and equal rights was everywhere to be opposed, that the experiment of reconstruction might become a hissing and a by-word, and go forth to the world an ignominious failure.

The masses were kept in utter ignorance of these designs. They were in a state bordering upon absolute frenzy at the losses they had incurred from the fratricidal war that had left them bankrupt as individuals and communities, and with the peculiar anxiety that seems to pervade the hearts of all men, to endeavor to find some reasonable excuse for sins committed, they accepted the theories that had been so ingeniously prepared, and so carefully put before them, and became, like the clay in the hands of the potter, ready to be fashioned in any manner of form that might be decided upon by their wicked counselors.

There was an oppressive and an ominous calm in the atmosphere of the South at this time (1866) that foreboded no good. Men viewed each other with [Pg 14]distrust. Those who seemed well-disposed at first, and who had been casting about themselves and gathering up the fragments, with a view to renewing their peaceful pursuits, suddenly abandoned their labors. Rumors of outrages upon persons and property, vague at first and without apparent authenticity, began to fill the air. Bands of armed and disguised men were said to be travelling the highways, burning the dwellings, and robbing and murdering inoffensive citizens under the most revolting circumstances. The scriptural command to “devise not evil against thy neighbor, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee,” had seemingly become obsolete among the people. It was evident that the mysterious order, the existence of which had so long been hinted at, had begun its fearful work, and under the then complexion of affairs in the nation at large, none could divine the end.

The death of President Lincoln had left the Executive, in this the hour of the nation’s great peril, in the hands of one from whom the disorganizing elements of the South had much to hope. The hand of justice was for the time being paralyzed, and the occasion seemed most opportune for the conspirators to perfect their terrible organization, and set in motion the secret machinery by which it was hoped to accomplish their base purposes.

It was evident from such facts as could be gathered relative to these outrages, that there was a distinction as to the classes of people who were the sufferers. The negroes were, of course, the objects upon which the wrath of the new order was vented; but there were numerous instances, as will be observed in the succeeding pages, where whites were scourged and murdered as well. The fact that certain citizens, who had committed no offense against the laws, were selected from the various communities, and subjected to the grossest indignities, led to inquiry as to the causes that had brought these inflictions upon them.

[Pg 15]It was ascertained that, in the preponderance of cases, warnings had been sent to the victims demanding that they must retract their political faith, cease to side with radicals, and abandon their interest in the negro, or they must leave the country; failing in this, they were to be scourged to death.

Negroes who approached the ballot-box to exercise the newly conferred right of suffrage were watched as to how they voted, and warned that they must not vote the “radical ticket.” If they paid no heed to this warning, and were detected in the independent exercise of the right of suffrage, they received a visitation; their houses were pillaged, the persons of their women violated, their children scattered, and themselves hung, shot or whipped to death. The reader, in perusing the chapter of authenticated outrages that follows will agree with the writer that there is no exaggeration of language here, nor need of any. Nothing is stated that has not been put to the severest test of truth; and nowhere are these incidents recorded, in which the living witnesses have not been found, and the facts obtained from them.

I was long in believing that such deeds, worthy alone of the incarnate fiend himself, could be perpetrated in a civilized community. I made all possible allowance for the political and social situation. I determined to know whereof I affirmed, and resolved that when I obtained this knowledge, I would give the information to the country. I was as free from political bias as it was possible for a man to be who felt it to be a part of the duty he owed to society to exercise the elective franchise. I had never mingled in politics, but had uniformly cast my vote with either political party which I deemed had the best interests of the nation, and the welfare and advancement of the people, at heart, and could not bring my mind to believe, at first, that there was a deep political significance [Pg 16]underlying this movement, and that it had its ramifications from State to State, all leading to one great center, with one common head who, in the interest of any political party, governed and directed the dreadful machine, and that it meant nothing less than the subversion of the popular government.

The facts and figures gradually undeceived me. I could see that there was a mysterious something at work that had closed men’s mouths most effectually, and that disaffection, consternation and terror gained ground daily. Even, my brethren of the pulpit, with whom I was associated in the different places I visited, were affected to such a degree that they no longer dared to preach the free sentiments of their hearts.

No one but an actual resident of the South, at this time, can form anything like an adequate idea of the reign of terror, that this condition of affairs had inaugurated during the succeeding two years and more, of President Johnson’s administration. Everywhere throughout the South that I travelled, the hydra headed monster met me. I tried to believe in all charity that the movement sprung from the ignorant and uneducated masses who saw, or thought they saw, the origin and cause of all their misfortunes in the negro, and the liberal minded whites of the South who had countenanced and urged his enfranchisement in the interest of human progress; but the facts were everywhere against the theory.

It was evident that a formidable organization, the result of intelligent men counseling together, and devising wicked plans for the accomplishment of wicked purposes, existed in all the Southern States; that it had its ritual, its oaths, its signs, tokens and passwords, its constitution, by-laws and governing rules, its edicts, warnings, disguises, secret modes of communication, intelligent concert of action, and all framed and planned in a manner that showed the[Pg 17] authors to be men of education and superior minds. In North and South Carolina, in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, in Florida, Mississippi and Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, it existed in a greater or less degree, and its advent was everywhere marked with the most brutal outrages.

The intelligence of these wrongs was not spread from one community to another by the newspapers. These, when not in the interest of the order itself, were intimidated into silence. When the outrages were so flagrant as to compel some show of attention, such as necessitated the action of a coroner, juries were selected, the members of which were members of this mysterious order, and the verdict usually was that the victim came to his death by injuries inflicted by himself or by negroes.

The disaffection spread daily. The seeds of the order, and their fruits everywhere manifested, were sown in the courts and grand juries. Under such a condition of affairs there was no longer security for life or property. The idea of obtaining justice for any of the wrongs perpetrated, passed out of the minds of the sufferers entirely. The effect was generally demoralizing. Official incompetency and corruption aided rather than stemmed the rushing torrent that was bearing this section of the Republic to anarchy and financial ruin.

A large class of persons not heretofore alluded to, but who formed a very important part of society, looked on without apparent interest. These were men of wealth and education, who neither sought to justify the wrongs being done, or made any attempt to oppose them, but by their very silence gave a tacit consent to the wicked plans of the conspirators. They were a class “who rejoice to do evil and delight in the forwardness of the wicked.”

A system arose exactly in counterpart with that of[Pg 18] the old Spanish Inquisition. Personal hatred toward a citizen, black or white, was sufficient warrant for reporting his name and residence to the members of the order as a “radical republican” and a “negro worshiper,” and he was forthwith warned to leave the place on penalty of being whipped, or suffering a worse fate. Hundreds of young men with whom the writer has conferred, pointed to men of maturer age, property holders and men of influence, and confessed that they had been induced to enter the general conspiracy, because they were told these men were at its head and after joining it learned that they had not been deceived in this respect, and yet they found the order so arranged that they could discover nothing, and were allowed to know nothing, of its workings, beyond the circle to which they had been admitted, and however revolting the practices of their associates were to them, the oath they had taken, and the feeling of terror inspired by the initiation and the penalty attached to recanting members, compelled them to continue their allegiance, and acquiesce and aid in the outrages.

Even the women seemed to have caught the general infection, and sought to justify the dreadful events transpiring about them upon the ground that this was the only way in which the rights and liberties of the South could be preserved.

That men holding high official positions, and moving in the most respectable circles, organized these outrages, selected the victims and accompanied the rabble in the execution of their designs, is indisputable. Inoffensive women seeing their husbands, fathers, and brothers torn from their sides and scourged in their presence, became infuriated at the indecent spectacle, and in their agonized frenzy, rushed upon the assailants and wrenched off the masks behind which they skulked, only to behold the faces of men who, up to that hour, they had deemed the ones to whom, from[Pg 19] their superior intelligence, they should have looked for counsel.

Traveling from place to place and directing the general movement, were men who had held positions as generals in the armies of the rebellion. Disappointed political tricksters aiming to elevate to power a party whom they claimed had been in sympathy with the rebel cause North and South; and determined to do this though the land of their birth should go to ruin. Anarchy and confusion usurp the places of law and order, and the blood of the outraged ones reach up to heaven in cries for vengence.

These men overlooked the fact that they were setting in motion a power that was destined to pass from their control, and make them as a people of whom it was written: “I will even give them unto the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life; and their dead bodies shall be as meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth.” They desired to heed no note of warning regarding the future so that the ends of the present were accomplished; and under their guidance, lust and rapine and murder stalked abroad, and the land seemed to be wholly given up to the machinations of the evil one and the unbridled license of his chosen servants.

Nowhere upon the dial plate of the nineteenth century did the index finger of the hand of God point with such unerring and terrible certainty. It seemed as if the Lord had spoken once more as he spake in the days of the Prophet Isaiah:

“What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to. I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the walls thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will lay[Pg 20] it waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns * * * for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.”

Good men bowed their heads in anguish. They had lifted their eyes to the far North, from whence should come their help, and they had looked in vain. The body corporate was too fatally diseased to cure itself Rottenness and corruption hung upon its borders, and were slowly sapping the foundations of its life. Its energies were prostrated, its internal recuperative power destroyed. Help must come from without; and the earnest prayers of the devoted and doomed went up to the throne of God in heartfelt supplication, that wisdom might dwell in the hearts of the counsellors to whom the destinies of the nation had been confided; but it seemed as if the heavens were as adamant that could not be pierced, and that no answer would be vouchsafed to the sincere appeal.”

Such was the situation at the close of President Johnson’s term of office, and the elevation of General Grant to the presidential chair. It remained to be seen whether the incoming administration would turn the deaf ear to the suffering and disorganized South as its predecessor had done, or whether, under the guidance of its new Executive head, order should be brought out of chaos, the crooked paths made straight, and the prophecy fulfilled: “Behold, I will redeem them with an outstretched arm.”

The recitals that follow give answer to this query more conclusively than the most elaborate of arguments. They show, from statistics gathered under the most favorable circumstances by the writer in person, the existence of a numerous and formidable organization of armed men, working in secret, disguising [Pg 21]themselves beyond all hope of recognition, committing depredations upon persons and property, frequently resulting in the total destruction of both, and instituting the most bitter and inhuman persecutions, for opinion’s sake, that ever disgraced the history of a nation.

The facts are beyond all hope of successful denial. They are born out by the records of the local and federal courts, by the testimony of the surviving sufferers and by the voluntary confession of recanting members of the organization.

A full expose of the order, its origin and secrets, its designs and purposes, its operations and results, are related with an unswerving fidelity to the truth, and with all charity to the people with whom it had its rise, and among whom, by the grace of God, and under the firm but humane course pursued by the present administration in the enforcement of the law, and the establishment of the right, it must have its fall. The information came to the knowledge of the writer through those who had been active members of the order, and who had abandoned it the moment the strong arm of the Government had been felt in the vigorous enforcement of the laws, through its secret agents, thus rendering it safe for them to do so.

The revelations that follow, speak in tones that must reverberate throughout the length and breadth of the continent, and are submitted as terrible evidences of the fearful condition to which communities may be reduced, when, ignoring the cardinal principles of right and justice, they abandon themselves to the control of unscrupulous men, whose overweening ambition destroy every other sentiment, and who esteem no measures too vile or inhuman that will lead to the accomplishment of their own base ends.

The Constitutional Union Guards.—Knights of the White Camelia.—Order of Invisible Empire.—The White Brotherhood.—Union and Young Men’s Democracy.

In the early part of 1866, or nearly a year after the close of the war of the rebellion, there was organized in the Southern States, a secret order, known as the “Constitutional Union Guards,” having a constitution, by-laws, oaths of allegiance, modes of recognition and approach, and a ritual, all of which were legendary and unwritten. Its places of meetings were styled Camps. Its officers were: a “Commander,” “South Commander,” “Grand Commander,” “Chief of Dominion,” and “Grand Cyclops,” or supreme head of the order.

[Pg 23]The Commander is the chief officer of a local Camp. He issues the call for, and presides over, all its meetings. Initiates members; administers the oath; invests them with the signs, grips, and passwords necessary in making themselves known as members of the Order; and imparts to them the signal code of sounds by which they are governed in their excursions, and at times when, for obvious reasons, it is not expedient to utter words of command.

The South Commander is, to all appearances, a lay member of the Camp. His power, however, when he chooses to exercise it, is superior to that of the Commander. He is an officer without apparent function, and yet it is a portion of the oath attached to the second, or supreme degree, that he shall be obeyed in preference to any other known or constituted authority. He can prorogue the Camp, or dissolve it altogether, whenever he deems fit, and is amenable to no one inside of the Camp of which he is a member.

The office of this functionary is not an elective one. Whenever a Camp is formed, the authority under which it works assigns to it a South Commander, and he is the only person through whom communications can be received from, or made to, that authority. All the doings of the Camp, the number and names of its members, the warnings issued, the persons visited, and all other proceedings, are carefully noted by the South Commander, and reported by him to the Grand Commander of the District in which the Camp is located, and he is the only member of the Camp who has knowledge of that officer. The South Commander is not permitted to know any Grand Commander save the one to whom he reports, nor does he know to whom his superior is amenable.

The Grand Commander has charge of a District comprising a certain number of Camps (usually seven), from the South Commanders of which he receives [Pg 24]reports as above stated. It is his duty to condense these reports into cypher, which he transmits to the officer above him, known as the Chief of Dominion, and from whom he receives the general instructions and orders to be transmitted to the various Camps of his District through the South Commander. He in turn is not permitted to know any Chief of Dominion save the one to whom he reports; and, like his inferiors, is in utter ignorance as to whom his superior is amenable.

The Chief of Dominion has charge of all the operations of the Order in some State assigned to his care. He receives reports from the Grand Commanders thereof; and transmits the same to the “Grand Cyclops,” or supreme head of the Order, and President ex-officio of the “Supreme Grand Council.” This Supreme Grand Council is composed of the Chiefs of Dominions, and from them emanate the instructions which, being decided upon in the conclave of the Council, are promulgated to the rank and file through the Grand Commanders, South Commanders, and Commanders of Camps.

By this peculiar system of organization the moving spirits of the Order are conversant with all that transpires below them, while their own identity is carefully concealed from the masses whom they design to move for their own vile purposes. The objects of the Order are somewhat covertly set forth in the oaths administered to the members, but previous to this time the grand designs intended to be accomplished were known only to the members of the Supreme Grand Council. The initiation is comprised in two degrees, the first or probationary degree being intended to test the members, and the second or supreme degree for those of the first who have been found worthy of advancement. The signs, grips, &c., are the same in both degrees, with the exception of one test word, and a supplementary ritual hereafter to be explained.

The first or probationary degree of the Order is intended for the masses. The candidate for initiation is selected, so far as possible, with reference to his political proclivities, if he has any. He must be known to the member proposing him to be opposed to the Radical party; to be or to have been in sympathy with the cause of the rebellion; to be opposed to the elevation of the negro to a social and political equality with the whites; and to have a hatred of negro worshipers, carpet-baggers, and scallawags, as those terms are interpreted in the Order.

These points being satisfactorily settled, he is notified to proceed to a secluded place on a designated night. There he is met by three Conductors, who blindfold and lead him to the vicinity of the Camp, which, in order the more effectually to guard against surprise, rarely assembles twice in the same place. On the way he and his Conductors are encountered by a guard or sentinel, who challenges the party with:

“Who comes here?”

His Conductors reply: “A friend.”

The guard asks: “A friend to what?”

He is answered: “My country.”

The candidate is then allowed to pass into the Camp, and is conducted to the center of the assembled members, when the following oath is administered to him by the Commander:

[Pg 26]INITIATORY OATH.

“You solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, that you will never reveal the secrets that are about to be imparted to you, and that you will be true to the principles of this brotherhood and its members; that you are not now a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Red String Order, the Union League, Heroes of America, or any other organization whose aim and intention is to destroy the rights of the South, or to elevate the negro to a political equality with yourself; and that you will never assist at the initiation into this Order of any member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Red String Order, the Union League, Heroes of America, or any one holding Radical views or opinions. You furthermore swear that you will oppose all Radicals and negroes in all of their political designs, and that, should any Radical or negro impose on or abuse or injure any member of this brotherhood, you will assist in punishing him in any manner the Camp may direct; and you furthermore swear that you will never reveal any of the orders, acts, or edicts of this brotherhood, and that you will obey all calls and summonses from the Chief of your Camp or brotherhood, should it be in your power to do so; and that, should any member of the brotherhood or his family be in jeopardy, you will inform them of their danger, and go to their assistance. You further swear that you will never give the word of distress unless you are in great need of assistance; and should you hear it given by any brother, you will go to his or their assistance; and should any member of this brotherhood reveal any of its secrets, acts, orders, or edicts, you will assist in punishing him in any way the Camp may direct or approve, so help you God.”

During the administration of this oath, the members surround the initiate, dressed in long, white gowns, high, conical shaped, white hats, and their faces shrouded in white masks. At the conclusion of the oath, the candidate is made to kiss the book. The bandage is then[Pg 27] removed from his eyes. The Commander approaches, and proceeds to instruct him in the

First.—Strike the fingers of the right hand briskly upon the hair over the right ear, bringing the hand forward and partially around the ear, as if describing a half moon.

Second.—Thrust the right hand into the pant’s pocket, with the exception of the thumb, at the same time bringing the right heel into the hollow of the left foot.

Answer.—Same sign with the left hand, bringing the left heel into the hollow of the right foot.

As a farther precaution search is made by the hailing party as if for a pin in the right lappel of the coat.

The Grip is given by placing the forefinger on the pulse of the person you shake hands with.

Countersign.—If halted by a camp or picket on the public highway at night, the following colloquy ensues:

[Pg 28]These countersigns are issued every three months. The one here given was in vogue at the time of the discovery of the order.

A member of any order of the Ku Klux Klan of the first or probationary degree, in distress, and requiring speedy aid, will use a word signal, or cry of distress: “Shiloh!”

In expeditions conducted under direction of the Commander, or any of the brethren detailed by him to act as head, a code of signals by sounds, made with whistles, is used, in order that the members may not be recognized by their voices.

There are several divisions of the order of the Ku Klux Klans, all working under the same ritual and oaths, and having the same signs, grips, passwords, modes of approach, and general conduct of raids and midnight excursions. These are known under the names of “Knights of the White Camelia,” “The Invisible Empire,” “The White Brotherhood,” “The Unknown Multitude,” “The Union and Young Men’s Democracy.” All work in disguise, with the exception of the latter, who work openly as well as in disguise, and are all under the instructions of the “Grand Cyclops” and the Supreme Grand Council. They all have one and the same object, which is as plainly set forth in the oath as it well can be in an obligation of that character.

The difference in names and styles has been adopted for a two-fold purpose. First, to conceal the origin, object, and design of the order, and its founders and directors; secondly, to conceal its extent and numbers, and make it appear a mere local affair that has cropped out in different places without reference to any organized combination with one grand center.

[Pg 29]The workings of the Klans over all the Southern country show more conclusively than any amount of subterfuge on the part of the leaders, that one common tie binds them all; that one common interest actuates them; that one common end is to be accomplished. The oath differs slightly in phraseology in different localities, to accommodate the varied circumstances under which it is administered, and with a view to greater concealment—the words “Unknown Multitude,” “Invisible Empire,” and “White Brotherhood” being substituted in North and South Carolina; the words “Union and Young Men’s Democracy,” in Georgia and Mississippi; and the words “Knights of the White Camelia,” in Louisiana and Texas and other States.

This degree differs from the first or probationary degree in the fact that those upon whom it is conferred are of the better class of the masses, and take upon themselves a more binding oath, administered under circumstances intended to be more impressive in character. The candidate for this degree is brought blind-folded into the center of the Camp, and caused to kneel at an altar erected for the occasion, his right hand placed upon a Bible, and his left upon a human skull. The Commander then says:

The members respond, “It must!” and this in a tone intended to strike terror to the heart of the novitiate.

The candidate, of course, has no knowledge of what is meant by the ominous “Must it be done?” and there is a mournful groaning in the response “It must!” indicating that a terrible experience awaits him, which the Brotherhood would gladly spare him if they could.

[Pg 30]A death-like silence ensues for a few moments, which seem ages to the candidate, and affords ample opportunity for his imagination to picture the unheard-of horrors through which he may possibly be called to pass. The silence is finally broken by the Commander, who says:

“Brethren, this brother now kneels at the altar of our faith, and asks to be bound to our fortunes by the more solemn and mysterious provisions of our Order. Fortunately for him in this hour of peril, he has been found worthy, and in commemoration of his being made one of the great ‘Unknown Multitude,’ I again ask, ‘Must it be done?’”

The Commander then says, in a stentorian tone of voice, “Let the blood of the traitor be spilled: bring the victim forth.”

The members here make a rustling noise, to resemble a struggle, a heavy blow is struck upon some appropriate substance, and a few drops of blood are trickled over the hand of the initiate that rests upon the skull. The brethren then surround him with knives and pistols presented in a circle about his head and neck, when the Commander then says:

“Must I swear him by the oath that shall forever bind, and never be broken?”

The brethren, placing their hands upon their left breasts, respond sepulchrally as before, “Swear him!”

“My Brother, kneeling at the solemn altar of our faith, as one who desires that no government but the white man’s shall live in this country; and as one who will fight to the death all schisms, and factions, and parties, coming from whatsoever source they may, which have for their design the elevation of the negro to an[Pg 31] equality with the white man, I am now about to administer to you the oath of this, the supreme degree, of our Order—that oath which shall forever bind, and never be broken; at the same time informing you that this oath, being taken in a cause which has for its object the deliverance of your country and the land of your birth from the rule of the negro-worshiper and the fanatic, is paramount to every other oath which you have taken, or may hereafter take, outside of this Order. You will now repeat after me, pronouncing your name in full, and your words aloud, on pain of instant death:

Oath of the Second or Supreme Degree.

“I, A. B., in the presence of Almighty God, and these my friends here assembled, kneeling at this altar, with my right hand upon the holy Bible, and my left washed in the blood of a traitor, and resting upon the skull of his brother in iniquity, and being fully impressed with the sacredness of this act, do solemnly swear that I will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, as it was handed down by our forefathers, in its original purity; that I will reject and oppose the principles of the Radical party in all its forms, and forever maintain and contend that intelligent white men shall govern this country. And I furthermore swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Order of the Constitutional Union Guards, and will never make known, by sign, word, or deed, any of its secrets now about to be, or that may hereafter be confided to me; that I will obey all its precepts, mandates, orders, instructions, and directions issued through the Commander, and aid and assist the brethren in carrying out and enforcing the same; and that I will keep secret, even unto death, the plans and movements of this society. I furthermore swear to obey the South Commander in the Camp, in preference to any known law, precept, or authority whatever, and to defend the brethren, if need be, with the sacrifice of my life. I swear that the enemies of the white man’s race, and the white man’s government, and the friends of negro equality shall be my enemies, and that I will uphold and defend the white man’s government against all comers, whether in the name of Radicals,[Pg 32] Negro-worshipers, Carpet-baggers, Scallawags, or spies in the land. I swear to forever oppose the social and political elevation of the negro to an equality with the whites, and that I will come at every hour of the moon to execute the trust confided to me by the Commander and the brethren. I furthermore swear that, in case of our being interrupted in the establishment of the principles for which we are contending, that I will regard no oath that will convict one of the members of this Order, but under all circumstances will stand by the Order in blood and death. I furthermore swear that I will not give the signal cry of distress, only when in real distress, and that I will yield my life, if necessary, in aid of a brother giving the double cry of this degree. Lastly, I swear by this Bible, and this skull, and this blood, that should I ever prove unfaithful in any particular to the obligation I have now assumed, I hope to meet with the fearful and just penalty of the traitor, which is death, DEATH, DEATH, at the hands of the brethren. So help me God.”

The candidate having kissed the book, the bandage is removed from his eyes. He sees before him a human skull upon one side of the Bible, and a small chalice or cup filled with blood upon the other. The brethren are all disguised in long black gowns, covering them completely from neck to heels. Black masks and black conical shaped hats of enormous height, decorated with representations of death’s head and cross bones, complete the costume.

Some of the members bear pine torches, which throw a wierd and unearthly glare upon the unholy scene, and render it a fit counterpart to the abode of the demons who seem to have instigated the proceedings. When the bandage is removed, these torches are swung violently to and fro, and the brethren simultaneously utter a loud cry.

The candidate is now informed that the signs, grips, and passwords of the preceding degree are used in this, with the exception that the signal cry of distress in this is composed of two words: ”Shiloh, Avalanche.”

An Authenticated Account of Outrages Committed in the South.—The Perpetrators and their Victims.

From the close of the war, up to the fall of 1870, there resided in Lowndes county, Georgia, an exceedingly intelligent colored man, named Edward Thompson. He was noted for his piety, and the peculiar influence he exerted over the members of his race who resided in Lowndes county, and Hamilton county, Florida; and being thoroughly imbued with Republican principles, lost no opportunity in disseminating them among those of his race with whom he associated. Through his exertion, and by the force of his example, the negroes voted the ticket of the Republican party at every election, always seeking his advice before going to the polls to deposit their ballots.

Thompson’s case was brought before the Camp of Hamilton county, Florida—at that time, presided over by one Elihu Horn, Commander of the Camp—as one[Pg 34] requiring energetic action upon the part of the Order. A warning was issued to Thompson, the import of which could hardly be mistaken. The following is a verbatim copy of the same taken from the original.

“K. K. K.

“His Supreme Highness of Hamilton to Edward Thompson.

“His Supreme and Mighty Highness has heard of your seditious practices in leading others astray, and encouraging them in opposition to the white man’s government. Time is given you to repent and submit as your fathers have done. Now this is to warn you, and all such as you, on pain of punishment and death, to abandon your vicious harangues, and abide by our orders. The moon is yet bright; it may turn to blood.

“By order,
“K. K. K.”

Thompson paid no heed to this warning, but continued to pursue the even tenor of his way. He had resided so long in the place, and been so favorably known there, both among the whites and blacks, that he scouted the idea that this meant anything more than a threat intended to intimidate him, and he continued exerting his influence in the Republican cause with his brethren, as had been his custom. Several warnings were subsequently sent to him with no better effect, and it was finally decided in the solemn conclave of the Camp, that he should receive the long threatened “visitation.”

On the 19th of September, 1870, Thompson retired to his bed between nine and ten o’clock, as was his usual custom. His family consisted of his wife and two children, all of whom occupied the same sleeping apartment. Between eleven and twelve o’clock they were aroused from their slumbers by the door being broken[Pg 35] in with a tremendous crash, and before Thompson had time to collect himself, he was rudely seized and dragged from his bed by a number of men, armed and disguised, two of whom fired their revolvers into the roof of the cabin, as a menace, and assured Thompson they would turn the weapons upon him, if he offered the slightest resistance. His wife and children were also dragged from their beds, being at the same time severely struck by some members of the band, and told to remain quiet.

“In the name of the Lord, what is this?” asked Thompson, as soon as he could command his voice.

The response was a blow upon the head from the butt of a pistol, delivered with a brutality that convinced him that he was in the hands of those to whose hearts mercy was a stranger. He was then told to ask no questions, and make no noise, but to dress himself and go with the band.

His wife was subjected to the most revolting indecencies. The last garment that covered her nakedness was wrenched from her person and torn into shreds, leaving her utterly exposed to the malicious and lecherous eyes of the intruders. She was then told “to get her rags on,” and go with the party. The children terrified at seeing their parents thus brutally assailed, uttered the most piercing screams, but were ordered to remain behind and not leave the house, or they would be killed. The band started out with their captives in the direction of the house of John and Samuel Hogan, two white men who were known to be Republicans, and had thus rendered themselves obnoxious to the Camp. They compelled the Hogans to accompany them, and started for the woods, nearly a mile from Thompson’s house.

One Micajah Amerson, a colored man living near the scene of this outrage, hearing the report of the fire arms, arose, and dressed himself, and taking a shot gun, started[Pg 36] for his son’s house on the Joseph Howell plantation. Amerson was just in time to meet the band having Thompson and his wife and the two Hogans in custody, and was at once seized and compelled to go with the party. Amerson seems to be the only one of the captives able or willing to give an intelligent account of what subsequently transpired, which he did to the writer as follows:

“I saw the company in the road, and knew they were the Ku Klux from their disguises. I saw it was no use to try and get away from them, and one of them told me to go along, at the same time striking me with a club. Edward Thompson and his wife (colored), and John and Samuel Hogan, two white men, were with them. Thompson said nothing but his wife moaned all the way on the road to the woods. We went about a quarter of a mile into the woods, and were then ordered to halt. When the halt was made, one of the band gave a peculiar whistle, which was answered almost directly by a similar sound. This proved to be the signal for the appearance of a party who was addressed as the Captain, and who at once took charge of the proceedings.

“I and the two white men were ordered to sit down, a pistol being placed at our heads to enforce obedience. The colored man (Thompson) was then told to strip himself naked. This he commenced very reluctantly to do, begging for mercy, and asking what he was going to be whipped for. The members of the band seemed to be enraged at this, and taking out their knives, commenced cutting his clothes off, wounding him in several places. The Captain then struck him a powerful blow with a gun, shattering the stock and knocking Thompson senseless.

“No one paid any attention to him as he lay upon the ground,—the Captain and two or three of the band holding a consultation. The Captain then asked for[Pg 37] the “executioners.” Two men came forward and said: “Where are the warrants?” At this another of the party produced two long leather straps, and handing them to the two men, said: “Here they are.”

“These two then commenced to beat Thompson and his wife in a dreadful manner. The punishment on the wife was brief though cruel. That upon Thompson was continued until the “executioner” was thoroughly exhausted. He then handed the strap to another member of the band, who renewed the assault with great fury. Thompson, at first, made no exclamations, but on being struck in the more delicate parts of his body, screeched fearfully. He was brought to his feet several times while the punishment was being inflicted, only to be knocked down by the strap, and kicked by those who were standing around him. The members of the band laughed at his agony and said to the executioners: “Give it to the damned radical; learn the son of a b...h to keep his piety and politics to himself; we’ll teach him how to lead the niggers.”

“Thompson finally ceased to scream. His body was a mass of blood, and he appeared to be unconscious long before the beating was through with. I thought he must be dead, but dared not say anything. When the executioners had ceased, he lay perfectly still. One of the members said: “The d....d skunk is playing possum.” He then jumped at Thompson, kicked him several times in the side and back with great violence, and turning him over, ground his boot heel in his face. He lay for a long time unconscious, and was several times raised to his feet, but could not stand. His wife continued to pray during a portion of the time, asking God to bring her husband to life, and begging the Captain to spare him for the sake of his family, and let her try and get him home.

“The Captain finally said, she might do what she liked. It was easy to see that Thompson could not[Pg 38] live, but some of the band were not satisfied. One of them called out:

“‘Captain Smart, can I shoot the dirty radical?’ to which the Captain replied:

“‘No! the black son of a b....h is dead enough.’ The Captain then said to me and the two white men:

“‘Now, you take this for a warning, and if we ever hear of you divulging anything about this, you may expect the same treatment.’

“The white men and myself were then taken to the road, where we were met by another party, also in disguise, making about forty in all. I was then told to go to the Joseph Howell plantation, and remain there two hours, or the rest of the band would take me and put me up the spout.

“I done as directed, and returned to my own house about 6 o’clock in the morning; I then went over to Thompson’s house, and found him dead. How he came there, I do not know; I heard that his wife got him home, and that he was not entirely dead, when he got there.”

In addition to the testimony of Amerson, as to the terrible details of this brutal murder, we have that of Mrs. Thompson and the two Hogans. Dr. Mapp, a physician residing near Thompson, was called to see him, and at the earnest entreaty of the wife dressed his wounds, although he saw that the poor victim could not live possibly. He was literally beaten to a jelly. One of his eyes had been forced completely out of its socket, and he was otherwise almost totally unrecognizable.

Elihu Horn, alias Capt. Smart, was known at the time as a respectable member of society in Hamilton county, Fla., and a leader in the democratic ranks in that vicinity, and violently opposed to the present administration. He was determined that no one should preach what he was pleased to term “the heresy of[Pg 39] radicalism” in that county, and live, and his threat was fully carried out upon the body of the unfortunate Thompson.

In the light of such an outrage, can any one, of whatever creed or faith, question the policy of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the proclamation of martial law in such a community, or doubt the wisdom of the executive head of the nation, in his efforts to suppress the unlawful assemblages, who aspired to hold the life and liberty of our citizens in the hollow of their hands, and annihilate the hopes of newly-made freemen, by imposing upon them a bondage infinitely worse than that from which the nation, through the blood of her sons, had but so recently released them?

Shortly after the outrage which resulted in the death of Edward Thompson, a Mr. Driggers, residing in the county of Echols, and not far from where Thompson had been murdered, received a warning from the Ku Klux Klan, that he must change his political opinions, or leave the State.

Mr. Driggers was a prominent republican, and had made no secret of his political faith. He had freely expressed his opinions in that regard whenever he desired to do so, and had steadily voted the republican, or what was known to the Ku Klux as the radical, ticket. He was generally esteemed among his fellows, and especially among the colored people, in whose welfare he took a great interest, and this latter fact was deemed an offense not to be tolerated by the defenders of the white man’s government.

Warning after warning was sent to him, and he was thus duly reminded, that, unless he recanted, the fate[Pg 40] of Thompson would surely be his; but, he still regarded the matter as merely an idle threat, and time passed on until the night of the 25th of August, 1871, when a party of five men, armed, and disguised in black gowns and masks, visited his residence.

Mr. Driggers at once divined the object of this visitation, and was expostulating with the leader, when he was quickly overpowered and stripped in the presence of his family, and beaten with straps similar to those used upon Thompson.

He was dreadfully punished about the head, face, and back, and was informed by the Klan, that for the present they would accord him the mercy to live, but, unless he left the county, they would return and kill him, and destroy his property.

From similar outrages that had been perpetrated in the vicinity, Mr. Driggers was fully satisfied that this threat would be carried out to the letter. He was familiar with the brutal details of Thompson’s death, and was now convinced that the members of this terrible brotherhood would respect neither color, social standing, or respectability, and at once made hasty preparations, and abandoned his once happy home to become a wanderer. The visitation upon him was made solely for political reasons. He was a man that stood above reproach in the community, and no person could be found in Echol county that could impugn his character as a man, a gentleman, and an upright citizen. It was not contended that he had committed any other offense than that of being a radical republican, who, being too obstinate to change his politics, must be whipped into renouncing a faith that he could not be argued out of.

Is it any wonder that men who substitute brute force for argument, should so strenuously object to the efforts of the executive officers to enforce the law and bring order out of the chaos, into which[Pg 41] their wild and licentious acts have plunged the respective communities in which they live? Thinking men will say “nay,” and will ask and demand that the policy now being pursued by the administration shall be continued until the supremacy of the law is fully established, and men of all shades of color and political faith may “sit under their own vine and fig tree, with none to molest or make them afraid.”

Allen Wicker, William Smith, Butcher Smith, James King, and Lewis Kinsey, all residents of Echol county, Ga., and members of the Camp that had decided that Mr. Drigger must surrender his political opinions, leave his home, or die, were the persons upon whom the officers of the United States Secret Service fastened the guilt of this outrage.

One of the most appalling tragedies ever resulting from the free expression of political opinions, was that enacted at Irwinton, Wilkinson county, Georgia, on the night of the 31st of August, 1871.

For more than a year previous to this date, a white man, familiarly known throughout the county as Sheriff Deason, had taken a very active part in politics, having espoused the republican cause, as one might say, in the very den of the lion himself, and standing almost alone, in what he considered a contest for the right.

Deason was a large, powerfully built, and muscular man, inured to hardship from his youth, resolute in his purpose, tenacious of his principles, and ready under all circumstances to expound them, whenever it seemed[Pg 42] good to him to do so. He was a man whose good nature was proverbial. He delighted to get into the country grocery, and there, surrounded by an admiring audience of colored men, and such of the whites as sympathized with him, although secretly, express his opinion, that the principles of the republican party were the only ones upon which a righteous government could be founded, and which would eventually bring the ship of State safely to a secure anchorage.

Among his hearers were many of those who had sworn to uphold the “white man’s government,” and who believed that Deason’s arguments were calculated to damage their labors in this respect, but, bold as they were, when in bands of twenty, armed and disguised, they assailed defenseless men and helpless women, they dare not single handed to make even so much as an utterance against his outspoken logic, and they writhed and twisted under it in silence. They comprehended, however, that seeds were being sown that would take root in the minds of thinking men, and produce results which they did not desire to see accomplished.

A formal presentation of Deason’s case was made to the Irwinton Camp of the C. U. G., to which Order, at that time, two-thirds of the white population of Wilkinson county belonged. As was usual in such cases, it was decided to issue a warning to the intended victim, which was forthwith done. Deason replied to it by pasting the warning upon the door of his house, where it remained an ever present witness to the contempt in which he held its authors, until it was washed away by the fall rains.

This was regarded as an act of defiance upon Deason’s part, that could not be overlooked. To add to this, he continued uttering his political views with the same freedom as before, and it was resolved that he must be stopped. This, however, was easier said than done; Deason was known to be thoroughly armed, a[Pg 43] man of undoubted courage, and a terrible opponent when thoroughly aroused, although very quietly disposed when left to himself.

The Camp saw they had a serious subject to deal with, and for nearly a year after the first warning, he was little less than a thorn in their side. His example worked steadily upon thinking minds, and it was evident that he must be put out of the way, as the only measure whereby the spread of the peculiar political principles advocated by him could be stayed.

A final warning was sent to him, the substance of which was, that he “must leave the country, change his politics, or make up his mind to become Buzzard Bait.” In the Conclave of the Klan, when this warning was directed to be issued, it was announced that this was positively the last opportunity that would be given Deason to repent of his ways, and that in the event of its failure to bring him to a change of his views, or his location, the full penalty attached to the “negro worshiper” would be enforced. This, however, had no more effect than the previous warnings, and his death was resolved upon.

On the night of the 31st of August, 1871, twenty-five of the Klan who had been selected by the Commander, armed and disguised themselves for the purpose, and proceeded to Deason’s house on the outskirts of the place. Deason had retired for the night, having carefully locked and barred his doors and windows as usual. It was about midnight when he was aroused by a heavy knock at his door. He arose from his bed and requested to know who was there. The reply was a demand for him to come out and surrender himself to the Klan.

Deason responded to this with a defiant remark, telling them if they wanted him, they must come and take him. The band then commenced battering at the door, when Deason, placing his gun at a loop-hole[Pg 44] which he had previously prepared, discharged both barrels. It appears, however, from some great misfortune to him, that neither of the shots produced any damaging effect upon the assailing party. The band were somewhat disconcerted at this, however, and withdrew a short distance from the house and held a consultation.

At the time of this visitation, Deason’s wife was away upon a visit, and the only other person in the house was a colored woman who was a servant in the family. She had already arisen and expressed her determination to assist Deason in the fight, to the extent of her ability. The latter had reloaded his gun and had just set it down when a sudden rushing noise, as of men running, drew his attention, and in a second afterwards, the door was crushed in by a joist, which the band, using as a battering ram, had forced against it.

The Klan poured in at once, and in full force. A terrible hand to hand fight ensued. Deason fought with great desperation, as did the colored woman. One after another of the Klan were stretched out upon the floor of the cabin, but the odds were too great, and Deason’s immense strength became exhausted under his tremendous exertions and the loss of blood which he sustained. He finally sank down pierced with over-twenty bullet and knife wounds, and died fighting to the last in the maintenance of the principles he had so long and so earnestly advocated.

The woman was soon dispatched, and the Klan then retired, taking their wounded with them. Deason’s mutilated body was found the next morning on the floor of the room in which he had met his dreadful fate, while that of the woman was found doubled up in one corner of the apartment, as if she had been thrown there like a bundle of worthless rags. The frontal bone of the dead man’s head had been broken, and[Pg 45] the base of his skull crushed in, apparently by a club. The body had been shot and stabbed in more than twenty different places, and presented a most revolting spectacle.

The facts of the double murder soon spread abroad, and were reported to a Mr. Bush, coroner of Irwinton, and that gentleman, being a member of the Camp that had ordered Deason’s death, empanelled a jury of his fellow-brethren, and, according to his own confession, made since that time, went through the form of an inquest, the result of which was a verdict that the man Deason and the colored woman had met their death at the hands of certain colored persons, to the jury unknown.

The death of this noble martyr to the cause of truth, effected important changes. There were signs of dissatisfaction among some portions of the community, to whom the details of the awful tragedy had become known, and it was necessary that some measures should be taken to appease the feeling of indignation that was beginning to gain ground.

The Grand Jury of the county was summoned to sit for the purpose of taking some measures to suppress crime. Every member of the jury was a member of the C. U. G., or Ku Klux Klan. Their first step was to issue an address to the people of the county, stating that evidence had been brought before them to show that certain negroes had been guilty of gross outrages in the county, which all good men should deprecate, and calling upon the citizens to look out for the evil doers. This had but little effect, however, other than to confirm the few well-meaning ones in their former belief that Wilkinson county was in the hands of men who would leave no measures unturned, to drive out of it, every one known to differ from them politically.

Deason is not the first nor the last in the long [Pg 46]procession of illustrious martyrs who, in all ages of the world have forfeited their lives in the maintenance of their principles. Unlettered, uncouth, uncultivated in life, resolute and unyielding even in death, he stands recorded upon the pages of this brief history, a noble and brilliant example of the lineal descendants of those who came from the shores of a distant continent, more than an hundred years ago, to seek that freedom of thought, that civil and religious liberty that had been denied them at home.

Many such as he, now live and suffer in the deluded and misguided land of his birth, and like him, have for years carried their lives in their hands, for opinion’s sake. In the good Providence of an all-seeing God—who has indeed imbued the present heads of the nation with the wisdom necessary to appreciate the situation, and devise the appropriate remedy—light begins to appear in the dark places, verifying the saying that, “sooner or later, insulted virtue avenges itself on states as well as on private individuals.”

While the Grand Jury were holding their sessions as previously stated, and only a short time after Deason’s death, a band of twenty armed and disguised men rode into Irwinton and murdered one Brinton Porter, an intelligent citizen whose offense consisted like Deason’s in his having disseminated Republican principles and voted the Republican ticket.

Porter had received a warning similar to that sent to Deason, but had said nothing about it, even to the members of his own family. After receiving the warning he had neither openly expressed his radical views, nor made recantation of his political faith, but as he had not left the country, as the warning stated he must do, his doom was pronounced in the conclave of the Camp, and it was ordered that he should die.

[Pg 47]On the 8th of September, 1871, after concluding the business of the day, and taking tea with his family, Mr. Porter left the family table, and, taking a chair, went out to his door stoop. His only child, a daughter of tender years, accompanied him and sat at his feet. He saw the band of disguised men approaching the house, and deeming himself in danger, immediately arose and was in the act of entering the house when he fell across the threshold pierced by half a dozen bullets, which had been discharged at him by the Klan. The child escaped unhurt. The Klan seeing they had accomplished their purpose, wheeled around and with derisive yells passed out of the town at a sharp trot.

The agony of Porter’s family beggars description. A wife widowed, and a child orphaned in a moment, because their natural protector had assumed the right guaranteed to him by the Constitution and the laws, to exercise the elective franchise according to his own opinion, and the dictates of his own conscience. Can one believe, that in the civilization of the 19th century, and upon the American continent, the boasted refuge for the down-trodden, and the oppressed of all nations, such a scene as that above related could be enacted in the broad light of day, and the whole community not rise up against it? Alas, for the degradation to which political bigotry and a disregard of law, reduces a people, it is only too true.

The data upon which this truthful narration of the murder of Brinton Porter is founded, is a matter of record in the archives of the Government. The facts can neither be gainsaid nor palliated. It is to be hoped that the firm policy of the present administration may bring the people of the community in which Porter lived to such a sense of the great injustice done among them, that they will rally to aid the Government, in bursting the bands thrown about them by the subtletry of their own unprincipled leaders, and stand[Pg 48] shoulder to shoulder with those who are doing all that human wisdom can devise to restore order and harmony, and promote prosperity and happiness among the people.

In some parts of Wilkinson County, there seemed to be a disposition to destroy every member of the colored race who should be found voting the radical ticket.

It was contended that scourgings and general maltreatment had not produced satisfactory results; and, on the other hand, blood was accumulating on the heads of the Klan, too fast even for their blunted consciences. Still the war must go on in some way, and something must be done to destroy the little leaven that bid fair to “leaven the whole lump.” The subject was discussed in the conclave of the Camp, and it was finally decided that a more effectual way could be devised to accomplish the extermination of the colored race than either by whipping or murder. This was the fiendish resolve to castrate every negro who was guilty of radical proclivities, and who voted the radical ticket, a design worthy alone of the men who originated it.

In that county, and at that particular time, there were many colored men known as Republicans; and an opportunity was speedily afforded the Klan, to carry out this terrible species of cruelty; a greater crime against nature than all the others since it looked to the entire destruction of the species.

There had been, for sometime previous to September, 1871, a colored man in Wilkinson County, by the[Pg 49] name of Henry Lowther. This person was favorably known among the negroes of the county, and expended a good deal of his leisure time in going from place to place, and talking Republican sentiments to members of his race, and urging them to vote the Republican ticket, as the only means of maintaining their right to freedom.

Previous to the dreadful visitation which subsequently came upon him, he had voted the Republican ticket upon two occasions, and had expressed his intentions to continue on in his political course in the future.

This had roused the indignation of the Ku Klux Camp at Irwinton beyond measure. A meeting of the Klan was called in which the edict was promulgated, that since Lowther would not abandon the propagation of his political opinions, he should be deprived of the power to propagate his race, and further, that he should receive no “warning” in the matter, but be proceeded against summarily, and “at once” was the time fixed for this outrage. Lowther had been followed all the day previous, and just after dusk was seized and thrown into a carriage, and driven rapidly away to the woods near Irwinton, by four men armed and disguised. While in the carriage, he was told that if he moved or made any resistance, his life would pay the forfeit; but that, otherwise, it would be spared.

Upon arriving at the woods, he was taken out of the carriage, and found himself in the midst of nearly one hundred persons. Notwithstanding the promise made by his first captors, he supposed his time had arrived and begged for his life. He was then told that he would not be killed, if he did not make too much resistance; that he had been preaching too much politics, and they intended to fix all the d—d radical breeders in the country; and had made up their minds to begin on him. Lowther did not fully comprehend[Pg 50] them at first, but soon learned the awful significance of the words.

His arms were then firmly pinioned, and he was thrown upon the ground where he was tightly held by several of the band, and castrated in a most rude and brutal manner, begging piteously and writhing under the pains inflicted by his tormentors. After the operation had been performed, he was unpinioned and asked if he knew the residence of any doctors and on his replying that he did, he was told to go for one as he valued his life; and further, that if he ever voted the radical ticket again, or influenced any one else to do so, he should suffer death. Although shockingly mutilated and bleeding from the dreadful manner in which he had been treated, Lowther started to find a physician. Three different surgeons were applied to before he found one sufficiently humane to afford him assistance in dressing his wounds.

It was several weeks before the unfortunate negro was in a condition to walk about. The facts coming to the ears of the officers of the U. S. secret service, they made diligent search for Lowther, whom they learned dared not complain of his treatment for fear of death; and having found and assured him of protection, he made affidavit to the facts as above set forth, affirming that, with other parties who instigated and consummated this outrage, were Eli Cummings, the Mayor of Irwinton, Lewis Peacock, then Sheriff of Wilkinson County, and others of equal prominence. Shall it be said after this that only the ignorant and uninfluential whites are engaged in the gross outrages charged upon the Southern community? and that there is no need there of the rigorous enforcement of the laws to secure to the well-meaning citizen, black and white, the security for life and property denied them under the rule of the lawless mob?

Persecution of the Furguson Family for Opinion’s Sake.—Aged Women and Young Girls Stripped Naked, and Brutally Whipped.—An Awful History.

The terrible narration that here ensues shows more conclusively, perhaps, than any that has preceded it, the extent of the moral degradation to which the community in which it was enacted was so surely and steadily drifting. It would seem that the authors of the outrage had forgotten that they were born of mothers, who had nursed them tenderly in infancy, or that there were any longer left in the bosoms of women those feelings of virtue and modesty usually ascribed to and found in the sex, and the writer will here premise that the facts herein contained, dreadful though[Pg 52] they are in their disgusting details, have been verified beyond cavil or the hope of questioning.

Just previous to the breaking out of the rebellion, Dennis Furguson, an intelligent and hard-working white man, resided with his family in Chatham county, North Carolina. The family consisted of himself, his wife Catherine, a daughter, Susan J. Furguson, and three sons, John, Henry and Daniel. The head of the household was one of the few devoted Unionists who were thoroughly opposed to the principles then being disseminated by those who were endeavoring to plunge the country into a civil war, and exerted all his influence to avoid the great catastrophe.

Mr. Furguson was known as being favorable to the Republicans, and had voted in the interest of the principles of the party of that name, whenever opportunity had offered. He had educated his children in a love of the Union, and taught them the blessings of civil and religious liberty with their evening prayers, and had succeeded in imbuing them with his own opinions to such an extent that the family became noted throughout Chatham county as Unionists and Radicals.

At the breaking out of the war, Furguson determined to remain a non-combatant, seeking as far as possible not to render himself obnoxious to his neighbors, but resolving at the same time to maintain a neutral position. In this, however, he was doomed to a bitter disappointment, being conscripted into the rebel army and sent to the front. He was taken prisoner at Fort Caswell, N. C., and was sent to Elmira, N. Y., where he died, never having seen his family from the night he was so rudely torn from their embrace, and compelled to serve in the army of the rebellion.

Neither this great calamity, nor the numerous other hardships suffered by this family for opinion’s sake, could shake their firm adherence to the Union cause.[Pg 53] The daughter was a beautiful girl, of great natural intelligence, but who had been wholly without the advantages of an education. She was attached to her father with a rare devotion, and believed it to be a filial duty, which she owed to his memory, to continue to enunciate the principles in which he had so thoroughly instructed her. His conscription had strengthened rather than weakened these sentiments, and she publicly spoke of his death as chargeable to the wicked designs of the men who had endeavored to overturn and destroy the country.

At the time of the organization of the first Camp of the “Constitutional Union Guards,” or Ku Klux Klan, in Chatham county, Susan Furguson was in her eighteenth year. Her case was the first one brought to the consideration of the Camp; but no special action was taken thereon until it was observed that the sons were following in the footsteps of the father, and were advocating the same principles of Unionism and Republicanism that he had taught them. They also learned that Miss Furguson lost no opportunity to express her convictions to the colored people with whom she came in contact, and in their eyes her course became intolerable.

During the October of 1870, the case of the Furguson family was again brought before the Camp as a flagrant violation of the principles of the white man’s government, and it was resolved that an example should be made of them. A warning was sent to the family to renounce their political faith, and cease the promulgation of their opinions, or leave the country. To this, and subsequent warnings of a similar character, no attention was paid, and an edict was finally issued by the Commander of the Camp, to have some, if not all the members of the family, scourged.

On the night of the 10th of November, 1870, the Furgusons retired to bed at about 10 o’clock. The[Pg 54] family was then composed of the widow, Mrs. Catherine Furguson, the daughter Susan, and the three sons. Between eleven and twelve o’clock, the attention of the daughter was called to a noise outside the house, resembling the tramp of horses’ feet, and the running of men. In a moment afterwards, a voice shouted, “Open the door.” The daughter arose hastily, threw a wrapper over her person, and went to the door and asked, “Who is there?”

The response to this was another command, delivered in more peremptory tones than at first—“Open the door!” and on her refusing to comply therewith, the frail structure was broken in, and a man, disguised beyond all hope of recognition, sprang into the apartment, confronting the girl with a most terrible oath.

In the dim glare of the candle which Miss Furguson had lighted, and now held above her head, this hideous looking object presented an appearance well calculated to terrify a stouter heart. A long black gown hung over his person to his knees, and his legs were encased in huge army boots, ornamented with a brace of iron spurs. Over his face was a black mask, with apertures for the eyes, nose, and mouth, and around these were drawn ghastly circles of white and red, rendering the face of the figure exceedingly repulsive. On his breast was the representation of a human skull worked in white, on a black ground, and surrounded with grotesque figures worked in red. His head was surmounted with a high conical-shaped black hat, on which were curious figures worked in white, and edged with red and yellow.

He commenced his interrogations by asking Miss Furguson if she had ever seen a Ku Klux; to which the brave girl replied she never had, nor did she wish to, unless it were more comely than he. This seemed to enrage him, and turning to the door, he shouted, “Come in!” A horde of twenty men, similarly [Pg 55]disguised, rushed into the room, and the indecent orgies commenced.

The mother and the three brothers had remained in bed, at the earnest request of the sister, but were speedily dragged from their resting place. Daniel was the first one assailed. His night clothes were torn from him in myriads of pieces, leaving him in an entirely nude state. He was then thrown down upon the floor, and stretched out at full length; four of the band seizing and holding him fast while two others came forward and administered to him upwards of an hundred lashes on the naked person, drawing the blood at every blow, and raising the quivering flesh in great ridges upon his back and limbs. The boy fainted under the terrible punishment, and was then thrown aside to make room for his brothers, Henry and John, who were each castigated in an equally severe manner.

John Furguson, who was more delicate than his brothers, uttered such piercing shrieks, as the heavy gum switches descended upon his back and loins, that his sister became almost insane. In her terrible agony she sprang upon the leader, and before she could be prevented, tore off his mask, and, to her horror and amazement, disclosed the face of Richard Taylor, one of her nearest neighbors, to whom she had often, since the death of her father, gone for advice and counsel. Taylor threw her rudely to the floor and replaced his mask as quickly as possible. The girl was severely stunned by the fall, but as soon as she recovered, cried out, “I know you, Dick Taylor, and I will have you punished for what you have done this night.”

Taylor immediately discharged his revolver at her, but, in the dim light shed over the room by the candle, and the excitement of the moment, shot wide of the object. He then exclaimed, with an oath, “If you move again, I will kill you dead; and if I ever hear of your telling anybody of this affair, we will come back and kill you all.”

[Pg 56]Turning to Mrs. Furguson, he said, “Now, you take your folks and leave this country. If you are not gone in ten days, we will be here again and you shall all die.”

During the entire time of this whipping the three sons, two of them men grown, were completely naked, and when the mother and daughter sought to avert their heads from the shameful spectacle, they were ordered to turn them back again on pain of instant death, the command being enforced with pistols presented at their heads, by the hands of men whom they now felt assured would not hesitate to use them if ordered.

Having issued the edict for the family to leave the country or suffer death, the gallant defenders of the “white man’s government” and the protectors of the “white man’s race” departed.

For more than three weeks succeeding this visitation, the Furguson brothers were confined to their beds, and the mother and daughter nursed their wounds, and labored for their support with untiring energy. During these three weeks Susan Furguson had spread the news of the outrage to all parts of Chatham County, characterizing the attack upon them as brutal and savage—a crime that, if left unpunished by men, would surely be punished by the hand of the Lord. She applied to the Justices of the Peace for relief, stated that she recognized Dick Taylor, and George and Joseph Blaylock, citizens of the place, as being present on the night of the assault, and participating therein, and would make her affidavit to the facts, and support it with undeniable testimony.

She was everywhere laughed to scorn. The few who sympathized with her and her family, dared not give expression to their thoughts for fear of a similar fate. Chatham County was in the hands of the Ku Klux; a reign of terror had been inaugurated there; the mob had made laws for themselves, and justice was not to be had.

On the fourth week after the visitation above recorded, and just when the Furguson brothers had about recovered from the effects of the brutal whipping, and were able to attend to their ordinary duties, the family were subjected to a second raid, far more revolting and indecent in its character than the first, and such as the sensitive mind naturally recoils from the contemplation of. The details are given here with a strict adherence to the truth, all the facts herein set forth having been personally verified to the writer by the sufferers themselves.

On the night of the 11th of December, 1870, Susan Furguson, and a young man named Eli Phillips, who had long known, and loved, and sympathized with her, were sitting before the fire in the room which had been the scene of the former outrage; the other members of the family, with the exception of John Furguson, had retired to bed.

Mrs. Furguson, the mother, was in very delicate health, caused by the shock produced by the visitation of the Klan four weeks previous, and the labor consequent upon nursing and caring for her sons. One of the brothers, Daniel, lay stricken with a fever that had prostrated him two days before, and was in an almost helpless condition.

About ten o’clock in the evening, the doors upon both sides of the house were broken in simultaneously, without previous warning, and a band of men, armed and disguised as before, and much larger in numbers, rushed into the room, uttering the most demoniac yells. A portion of the number proceeded directly to the bed where the mother was lying, terror-stricken and paralyzed from fear at their approach, and after first charging her with having exposed their former visit, dragged her from the bed and threw her[Pg 58] violently to the floor. They then stood her up, and ordered her to remove her night dress and chemise. This she refused to do, pointing to her gray hairs and imploring mercy in the name of God, and for the sake of the mothers who had borne them.

Her appeals were made in vain. At the order of the Commander, the members commenced tearing off the only garments that concealed her nakedness, and this with the most shocking brutality. The daughter, maddened by the sight, rushed upon the assailants, but was anticipated by other members of the band, with whom she had a severe struggle, displacing the masks of four of them enough to enable her to recognize their faces.

She was quickly overpowered, and then beheld her mother completely naked, her brother John bleeding profusely from the blow of a club, and her brother Henry and the young man Phillips firmly secured.

The mother was then thrown upon the floor and there securely held, while two of the band beat her with twisted sticks, administering upwards of one hundred blows upon various parts of her person, and bandying the most obscene remarks and jests in relation to her. The daughter plead for her mother most eloquently, she informed them that she was in delicate health, and might die under the punishment, but this had no effect upon the executioners. The interest of the “white man’s race” was at stake, and they had sworn to uphold the “white man’s government,” and would not stay their hands.

Having chastised the mother until there seemed but little life left, they commanded John and Henry, and the young man Phillips, to remove their clothes, and upon their refusing to do so, tore them off until not a vestige was left upon their persons. They were then whipped one after another, with great severity, the beating of John being so terrible that his life was despaired of for several days afterwards. The bed upon which[Pg 59] the helpless and fever-stricken Daniel lay, was knocked down from under him, and his already infirm body bruised and lacerated without stint. It was indeed “a chastisement with scorpions;” but the most indecent spectacle was reserved to the last.

The girl Susan, whose bravery and devotion to her family should have challenged the admiration of these lawless marauders, instead of drawing upon her their contempt, was next ordered to disrobe. Overwhelmed and confused at the merest thought, even, of such indignity, she could hardly command herself sufficiently to speak her denials; as soon as she did, she utterly refused to comply with the order.

The more lecherous and brutal of the band sprang upon and threw her to the floor, with no more regard for her person than if she had been a brute, whom they were leading to slaughter. They stretched her out at full length, and took her measure, as an intimation that they were going to dig her grave.

“We will put her and her radical lies where she can’t enjoy their good company, without further trouble,” said one. This was responded to by another, who, with a coarse oath, ejaculated, “Six foot under ground makes a good place for solitary confinement, by ——.”

The work of “taking the measure” having been completed, Miss Furguson, already suffering from the indelicate treatment she had received, was then allowed to rise, and again ordered to divest herself of her clothes. “Is it possible,” she asked, “that you will submit me to such an outrage?” She had never conceived it possible these men, depraved as they were,[Pg 60] would really carry out a threat against which her whole nature revolted. The reply was a sardonic laugh. The band had learned where the punishment would sting the most, and they meant to apply it and spare not.

For the first time in all her hated experience with these desperate men, she faltered and felt her courage failing her. To the high-toned and sensitive spirit of this brave and beautiful girl, there was something in this contemplated exposure of her person far more torturing than any number of lashes, however mercilessly inflicted. Death itself were a thousand times preferable, and, for the first moment in all her life, she felt like supplicating for mercy. Her hands dropped nervously and motionless at her side, and the stout-hearted heroine of the previous hour, stood in the presence of her persecutors almost stricken dumb with shame and confusion.

There was no sympathy in the glaring eyes that peered with lustful and revengeful fires from behind the hideous masks of their tormentors; no sentiment of pity, no hope, no help. She was given but little time to decide. They fell upon her like hungry wolves famishing for their prey, tearing one garment off after another, she resisting with all the strength she could command, and entreating them to take her life, if they must, but to spare her this last indignity.

Neither her piteous appeals nor her stubborn resistance availed her, and she lay upon the hard floor at last, naked as when born into the world, ashamed, degraded, broken in spirit, and her maidenly feelings outraged beyond any power of description. Four of the defenders of the “white man’s race” seized her limbs and arms; stretched them to their fullest tension, and placing their knees thereon, held her brutally and forcibly to the floor. Her punishment was to be terrible.

The “executioners” were called, and five of the[Pg 61] band came forward. “Number one!” shouted the leader, and a stalwart member of the Klan that had sworn to uphold the “white man’s government,” raising his knotted strap in the air, brought it down upon the naked person of the helpless girl with the terrible force of his muscular arm, cutting through the delicate white skin and causing the blood to spurt at every stroke. He administered thirty lashes, and was succeeded by “number two” and “number three,” until, as the witnesses state, one hundred and fifty lashes had been administered, and her shoulders, loins, and limbs, were literally cut into mince meat.

Her screams had ceased, and her unoffending body lay still and motionless long before the punishment had ended. There was something in her young heart far beyond the dread cruelty of this infliction, and she inwardly prayed to God for death, to end her mental and bodily suffering. Lying under this great mountain of sorrow and shame, she heeded not the rude and obscene observations of her tormentors; and the unconsciousness produced by the punishment, soon placed her beyond the power to listen to them.

Leaving her as one dead, and issuing the edict that if the family did not leave the country, it would be “death! DEATH! DEATH!” to all, the band departed.

Thousands of honest hearts of all shades of political opinions, upon perusing this truthful narration, will feel to wish that they could have been present with power at this time to have utterly destroyed this band of midnight raiders; but, let them remember the words of holy writ, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay”.... “Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath: but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.”

It was an hour after the departure of the band, [Pg 62]before any of the party exhibited evidences of life or animation. Henry Furguson, and the young man Phillips, were the first to come to a realizing consciousness of the awful scenes through which they had just passed. Wounded and bleeding as they were, they felt the necessity for immediate action. The mother and daughter still lay upon the floor, naked, lacerated and motionless. John Furguson had fainted from the loss of blood he had sustained, and was still unconscious, while Daniel was lying amid the debris of the bed, groaning in the agony of the fever, and the wounds upon his body.

Hastily gathering up the dresses of the women, and throwing them over their nude bodies, the young men lifted them tenderly to the bed, and gave them such attention as they felt able to bestow. The remaining members of the family were cared for as well as the circumstances permitted. Not a doctor could be had in the vicinity, who was not in sympathy with the Klan, and not a neighbor came to their assistance, although fully aware of their distressed condition. The neglect of the neighbors was in no way attributable to their indifference or their inhumanity. It was one of the legitimate results of the feeling of terror that then pervaded the community. A show of sympathy towards these unfortunates, they feared, would place them under the ban, and subject them to a visitation, and they dared not incur the risk.

In ten days another warning came to the Furgusons, that they must leave the country within twenty-four hours, or the penalty of death would surely be inflicted. They knew this warning must be heeded, and with broken hearts and crushed spirits, they crawled out into the woods, under cover of the darkness, and secreted themselves as they best could.

In an interview held with the writer, subsequent to this last outrage, Miss Furguson stated that the[Pg 63] weather, at this time, was cold and disagreeable, sometimes frosting and sometimes raining; that they had to lie out without a shelter, and suffered with the cold and hunger, sometimes going twenty-four hours without food. Occasionally the neighbors gave them something to eat, and finally the unfortunate wanderers sold to them the right to what furniture they had left behind in the house, and thus procured something upon which to subsist.

She stated further, that they were in the woods nearly a month, and that as soon as they were able to travel they left the vicinity and procured a home with a Mr. Dixon, on the lower edge of Chatham county.

An affidavit, based upon the statements of this young lady, was made before the Hon. A. W. Schaffer, U. S. Commissioner at Raleigh, N. C., on the 8th day of September, 1871. It charged the men, recognized by this girl, as being present and concerned in the outrages above related. Warrants were issued, and the officers of the U. S. Secret Service went to Chatham county and arrested the parties and brought them before the Commissioner. The more wealthy and influential members of the Klan rallied to their rescue, became their bondsmen, and they were released to await trial.

Miss Furguson’s description of the dreadful indignities to which she and the other members of the family were subjected, was of the most graphic and thrilling character, and aroused the sympathies of many who heard it.

The defenders of the “white man’s government” were alone amazed and enraged at the persistency and courage of this young girl of the “white man’s race,” and they determined to ferret her out and punish her again. In this they were successful, although for greater safety, the family had broken up, and the mother and daughter had secreted themselves, as[Pg 64] they supposed, beyond the knowledge of their persecutors.

On the night of the 20th of September, 1871, three men, armed and disguised, and who had been detailed by the Camp for the purpose, appeared suddenly before the miserable hut in which these unfortunates had taken refuge. An entrance was easily effected, and the women were told that their doom was sealed, and they were to be whipped to death.

These three protectors of the “white man’s race,” then fell upon the women, beating them brutally. Susan recognized one of them, by his voice, as a man named Jesse Dixon, whom she knew. The moment she called his name, the three ran away, leaving their victims, who passed the remnant of the night in the woods.

On the following day, the mother and daughter made their way to Raleigh, where fresh complaints were entered, and the Secret Service officers, armed with warrants, went out and succeeded in capturing two of the murderous assailants, who were brought in and held for trial. Mrs. Furguson and her daughter were then retained in the city as witnesses, at the expense of the government, and to protect them from further outrages.

Susan J. Furguson, the heroine of the terrible experiences above related, is now twenty-one years of age. She is a girl of commanding presence, is endowed with a powerful constitution, great energy and force of character, and an indomitable spirit. Her P. O. address is “Snow Camp Foundry, Chatham Co., N. C.,” where herself and other members of the family can be found, in verification of the facts above related.

There are few narrations in the annals of “persecutions for opinion’s sake,” more shocking in their inhuman details than the foregoing; certainly, none that cry with a louder and more earnest voice to the government,[Pg 65] and the right-minded people of the country, for help for those who have been the subjects thereof.

No amount of retributive justice can erase one solitary scar from the knout-welted bodies of the Furgusons, or remove from their spirits the dreadful memory of their disgrace; but to those who went forth to battle in the days of “The Nation’s Peril,” who stood shoulder to shoulder amid the roar of cannon, and, in vindication of the right, successfully withstood the shock of rebellious armies, it must ever remain a matter of profound gratification that the victories then achieved in the field are now being perpetuated in such a firm and vigorous enforcement of the laws as will have a tendency to make them substantial ones in the repression of any and all such outrages in the future.

The shocking murder of this gentleman is still fresh in the minds of most readers of the daily journals, North and South. Mr. Ashburn was a sterling patriot, who entertained radical opinions, and through his fluency and ability, as well as his outspoken friendliness towards the colored race, had gained their confidence and support alike, with that of the Republican whites of the vicinity.

He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Georgia which met at Columbus, in the winter of 1867-8, and during his stay there, was refused admittance as a guest at the principal hotels of the place on account of the political prejudice existing against him. He occupied private rooms upon one of the main streets of the city, where he lived in an unostentatious and unpretending manner.

[Pg 66]He was a man of extraordinary natural talents, a good speaker, of fair educational qualifications, and a most earnest defender and supporter of true Republican principles. On all occasions, and wherever he appeared, to discuss the political situation of the trying times he moved in, he spoke his sentiments unreservedly. He was far from ever having been a huckster or trickster in politics, but he was fearless and able, and his enemies doomed him!

At midnight, on the 31st day of March, 1868, a band of about forty men, who were armed and thoroughly disguised, made their appearance in an open lot of ground near his residence, and just opposite his private quarters. He had gone to bed in his room, and the door was just closed, when a summons from without called the servant, who opened it, and the Klan burst into the hall. Mr. Ashburn heard the noise, sprang out of bed, struck a light, and opened the door of his sleeping apartment. He did not fear death at the hands of these intruders, but he was alarmed at the rude demonstrations they made, and demanded to know what was their purpose.

With an oath and a brief exclamation of unwarrantable abuse, the foremost members of the Klan immediately fired upon and shot him down in his tracks like a dog. A white and colored woman in the house recognized three or four of the leading assailants, whom they subsequently identified, and these were among the first residents of the city of Columbus. The names of these parties, whose identity was sworn to, and who were afterwards placed on trial, are as follows:

Elisha J. Kirksey, Columbus C. Bedell, James W. Barber, William A. Duke, Robert Hudson, William D. Chipley, Alva C. Roper, James L. Wiggins, Robert A. Wood, Henry Hennis, Herbert W. Blair, and Milton Malone.

The morning after the assassination, a coroner’s jury[Pg 67] was summoned, and, as was usual in such cases, the verdict of these men—who were all members of the Ku Klux Klan—was, that Mr. Ashburn came to his death “from wounds received from parties to the jury unknown.” The local authorities made a faint show of investigating the matter, but really did nothing towards actually ferreting out and bringing to justice the murderers.

This outrage was so revolting in its inception and consummation, that the military authorities considered it right that they should undertake to do what the local police and citizens of Columbus had apparently been so indifferent in performing.

In the then condition of affairs nobody dared to appear against the suspected parties, and consequently witnesses could not be had in the ordinary way.

At this juncture General Geo. G. Meade, then in command of the Military Department there—for the State of Georgia was at this time under martial law—telegraphed to Gen. Grant, in Washington, that he desired the services of a competent and able detective to assist in bringing the guilty parties to justice. A second dispatch was sent by Gen. Meade, requesting that Col. H. C. Whitley, of the United States Internal Revenue service (then absent under Department orders in Kansas), should be directed to report to him in person for the duty indicated. In pursuance of this request Col. Whitley went to Columbus and commenced his labors, which resulted in the arrest of the parties above named.

A military commission was at once convened to try the accused. The witnesses for the Government gave their testimony in a straightforward manner, their evidence being fully corroborated by that of the people in the house where the deed had been consummated, and the conviction of the parties seemed inevitable.

The citizens of Columbus raised a hue and cry; the[Pg 68] local newspapers sharply criticized the proceedings; a furore of excitement was engendered; the ablest legal counsel to be had for the defence, with Alexander H. Stephens at the head, were engaged, and large sums of money were expended in behalf of the prisoners.

All parties were astounded, however, at the evidence which was produced against the accused. Its preparation showed a skill and ingenuity such as had never before been exhibited in working up a case before the courts of the district, and it was necessary that some measures should be devised to save the participants in the fearful tragedy from their justly merited punishment.

This could only be accomplished in one way—by the adoption of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it being a clause in the law that, upon the adoption of this amendment by the legislature of any State, all cases of civilians pending before military tribunals organized in said State, should be taken cognizance of by the civil courts therein.

The Democratic members of the Georgia Legislature were between two fires; the 14th Amendment was a bitter pill, but the necks of their confreres were in danger, and they were compelled to vote solid with the Republicans, and thus end the proceedings before the military tribunal. By this means, the trials of the Ashburn murderers were taken out of the hands of the military authorities, the prisoners put under bail, the witnesses compelled to flee for their lives, and there the matter rests.

To the unobserving mind the murder of George W. Ashburn would seem totally unavenged; but to him who sees in every great event the hand of an over-ruling Providence, evolving good from evil, a different conclusion must be arrived at. In his life, he fought manfully for the establishment of civil rights, and the political equality of the oppressed race of which he[Pg 69] was the chosen champion. In his death that result was consummated, in the State of Georgia, sooner perhaps by years than it would otherwise have been without this sacrifice. “Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud in the cause of liberty and reason,” there shall we find just such sacrifices as this, and there, too, “in the eternal fitness of things” and the onward march of law and the establishment of order, shall we find the triumphal vindication of those principles for which the republic has labored and travailed, and George W. Ashburn died.

As an instance of what the courage of one man can do in a righteous cause, against a multitude of those who are actuated by wicked and unlawful motives, the case of Mr. J. K. Halliday, a resident of Jackson County, near Jefferson, Ga., is perhaps one of the most extraordinary on record.

Mr. Halliday is a native of Jackson County, Ga., where he has always lived and done business. He was opposed to secession and rebellion from the first; was continually counselling peaceful measures, and openly avowed himself a Unionist. During the war, he utterly refused to take up arms against the Government, and being a man of great influence and large means, was enabled to avoid conscription into the rebel ranks.

He was a thriving business man, the proprietor of two plantations and a mill, and kept a large number of hands engaged at work. After the close of the rebellion and as a measure of concession to the turbulent[Pg 70] spirits by whom he was surrounded, he employed white men to do his labor.

Mr. Halliday soon found, to his inconvenient cost, that these men demanded exorbitant wages; that they were indisposed to perform a fair day’s work, sometimes not working at all, and then but for a half day, but always charging him for full time—and he finally became disgusted with, and discharged them altogether. This was sufficient to bring him into contempt with the Klan, who charged him with being a “negro lover,” as well as a Union sympathizer, and an open-mouthed Radical.

Threats of his assassination and the destruction of his mill and other buildings were freely uttered. He was formally “warned” by the K. K. K.’s, that he must change his course, politically, or he would certainly suffer death. Halliday’s reply to this threat and warning was simply to proceed to Jefferson, and procure some of the best modern weapons, for defense, that he could find. With these he returned to his dwelling, awaited results, pursuing his usual course, advocating such political principles as he please, and employing colored men as before.

During the spring of 1871, at a meeting of the Ku Klux Camp of Jefferson County, it was solemnly resolved that Halliday should be killed, and his property destroyed. The night for the “visitation” was duly decided on; and through an anonymous note this information was conveyed to Halliday, the writer begging him as he valued his life, to leave the place, and thus save himself.

To less resolute men this would have appeared a serious matter, but upon Halliday the threatened danger had an entirely different effect. It nerved rather than weakened his brave spirit, and he resolved to “stick.” He was a man full six feet in stature, and well proportioned; he had been long accustomed to[Pg 71] out-of-door life, and was considered one of the most powerful men, physically, in the county; he knew his strength, and relying upon that and an unswerving faith in God, he determined to defend himself and his family to the last.

On the night of the anticipated visit, he placed his wife and his two children in the upper room of the house, and barricaded the passage way leading thereto, as best he could.

Mrs. Halliday well knew the desperate character and murderous designs of the Klan. She clung to her husband, to whom she was devotedly attached, and expressed her fears as he passed down the stairway, that she would never see him again, alive! To this Mr. Halliday responded:

“You forget that the Great Master is with me! Trust Him as I do,” and kissing her and the little ones, he descended to the ground floor, where he intended to remain and await the advent of the party.

Some of the more faithful of the negroes observing the unusual care with which Mr. H. adjusted the fastenings upon the doors and shutters, that night, hinted to him that they “reck’nd he ’spected trouble,” and they would like to be near him.

“No,” said he, “go to your own places and don’t come out; if they come in here, I had rather be alone, for then I can shoot and cut at random and be sure not to hit any of my own friends. Every man I strike will surely be one who ought to be stricken.”

Mr. Halliday was armed with two rifles, two revolvers, and a long bowie knife. Shortly before midnight, the Klan made their appearance in front of the house, to the number of about twenty. Halliday saw them through a small half-moon shaped aperture at the top of the shutter.

They were all masked, and appeared each to wear a long rubber cape, falling from the shoulders to the[Pg 72] waist. They came straight to the door, and, without saying a word, commenced to batter it in. The door gave way in a few moments, and as they rushed in, Halliday discharged his firearms with such fatal effect, that three of the Klan dropped dead upon the floor.

The room was intensely dark, and a desperate fight ensued, in which the assailants more frequently encountered each other than the victim for whom they were in search.

Halliday was finally grappled by one of the foremost of the party. He speedily freed himself through his superior strength and the prompt use of his bowie knife, thrusting it into his assailant’s bowels, and throwing him violently back on to the crowd. The wounded man exclaimed:

This caused a panic among the marauders, and the entire crowd left the house, taking their dead and wounded with them. After making certain that all of their own number were out, they discharged their firearms through the open doorway, and beat a retreat, taking a circuitous route, to avoid being traced by the blood that oozed from the wounds of several of the number, two of whom died soon after reaching their homes, thus making five in all who had paid the forfeit of their lives in the unholy cause.

During all the time of this desperate encounter, the feelings of the wretched wife and frightened children in the upper room, may only be imagined. The father and husband, single handed, fighting against a horde of ruffians bent upon his murder; their own fate depending upon his, and not daring to cry out lest they should be discovered, and thus bring destruction upon their own heads, their situation was agonizing in the extreme.

Mrs. Halliday did not forget the last words of her husband, so full of the strong faith that characterized[Pg 73] the man: “You forget that the Great Master is with me. Trust Him as I do!” And sinking upon her knees, she poured her spirit out in silent and earnest prayer to God for help.

The dead calm that had ensued after the uproarious tumult of the firearms, and the fierce struggle of the combatants in the room below, alarmed Mrs. Halliday more than all else. Whether her husband had been overpowered at last and taken away, or had been left dead upon the floor, with some of the murderous crew watching to see who would come for the body, she knew not. Possibly he might be lying there alone, wounded and insensible, with the life-blood ebbing away, and no friendly hand to stay the crimson tide, and the thought was terrible and agonizing.

An hour went by. An hour into which years of misery were crowded to the forlorn woman, and yet no sound of life, no ray of light gleaming through the impenetrable darkness, to relieve the awful gloom and suspense, or give her one faint shadow of hope.

Halliday was indeed lying there, exhausted and unconscious from the numerous wounds and contusions he had received. In his right hand he still held the bowie knife firmly grasped, as if awaiting the further onslaught of the foe, while his left was clenched with the determination of his iron will. The cool wind blowing off the mill-stream and coming in through the open doorway, aroused him at length to consciousness.

The remembrance of the fight, his successful resistance, the retreat of the assailing party, and, above all, his wife and children, saved—and by his own right arm!—came back to his recollection and nerved him to action. He roused himself from his lethargy, and groping his way to the stairs, he called out:

Who shall tell the feelings of that wife-mother’s heart, bowed in its terrible anguish, and now so [Pg 74]suddenly raised to the highest pinnacle of happiness as she responded, “Here! and safe, thank God, and our husband and father.”

Who shall describe the music that will compare, in Halliday’s bosom, to the pattering feet of his darlings, as they rushed to meet his strong and loving embraces, and shouted, “Papa, papa!” amid their fast falling tears.

Halliday’s wounds, though not fatal, were still serious enough to alarm his wife, and as early in the morning as she dared, she sent one of the negroes for a doctor; but it appeared that every doctor in the vicinity was busy with patients who had been “taken suddenly ill during the night.”

One of these was the only son of a widow, the nearest neighbor to the Hallidays. He had received a “severe fall” the night previous, they said, upon a sharp instrument that had pierced his bowels and caused his death. This proved to be the man Halliday had cut. Five funerals attested the energy and strength of the hero’s arm, and the dead bodies of the victims remained as lasting “warnings” to the “defenders of the white man’s government,” and that it was not always wise to attack the members of the “white man’s race.”

It is almost needless to add that Mr. Halliday was left free from that time forth to pursue his own course, politically and otherwise as he deemed best, and that his persecutors came to realize with him that “the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,” and that in the struggle of the right for supremacy over the wrong, “God and one constitute a majority.”

John Springfield, a Deputy United States Marshal, residing in St. Clair County, Alabama, had drawn upon himself the odium of the Ku Klux of that county by accepting a position under the United States Government, the duties of which he endeavored faithfully to discharge.

He had been approached on several occasions by members of the Klan, who had made propositions to him to pervert his office, and shield certain parties who were engaged in the illicit distillation of whiskey; but had utterly refused to listen to any of these overtures, and was bold enough to proclaim the fact that he should use his best endeavors to bring to punishment the violators of the law wherever he found them.

The customary warning was sent to this intrepid officer, informing him that “St. Clair County was getting hot for him,” but that if he kept on in his course he would “be sent to a hotter place in a hurry.”

He was somewhat alarmed at this threat and moved about with great caution, but was unremitting in his attention to his duties until the spring of 1871, when the Klan decided that he must be stopped. An edict was issued, sealing Springfield’s doom, and the second night thereafter he was followed by three members of the Klan, disguised in black gowns and with their faces blackened, and was shot dead within a few feet of his house.

This murder was charged upon the negroes, and up to the present writing, the instigators and perpetrators have escaped punishment.

In the latter part of the year 1870, there resided in Clinch County, Georgia, a gentleman by the name of Asa Thompson, who, although a Southerner by birth and education, was an outspoken Radical Unionist, and had directly identified himself with the Republican party.

In his intercourse with the people he was frank and free in the expression of his sentiments, and always exercised the right of suffrage, conducting himself in an orderly and acceptable manner, at all times, as a good citizen should do. He was proprietor of a thrifty plantation, upon which he employed a large number of hands, and stood well generally in the community.

These essential requisites to a good citizen were altogether insufficient, in the eyes of the Ku Klux Klan in that vicinity, to balance the bad points (in their esteem) which characterized him, inasmuch as he was a Radical in principle. This fault was considered good cause for forwarding to Thompson a sharp “warning” from the camp, which was sent him in the customary form, and he was ordered to restrain himself in the utterance of his Radicalism, or quit the country.

If he failed to obey, then he would receive a visitation from the K. K. K.’s, and that meant death. To this notice he gave no attention, but laughed at the threat and awaited events. A second warning was then sent him, couched in the following terms:—

“One of three things will happen to you, very shortly. You will leave the country, so that we can never find you—change your politics—or be turned into Buzzard Bait.

K. K. K.”

To this expressive, but not over polite missive, Thompson returned a somewhat defiant reply, [Pg 77]proceeded at once to fortify his cotton gin-house, in which he remained at night, and dared the Klan to come for him.

During the month of September, 1871, matters had assumed such a position in this man’s case, that the Klan felt that Thompson must be annihilated, or the “reign of terror,” which they had inaugurated in the county, would be broken—and a reaction take place among the people, inimical to themselves.

Numbers of the band were accordingly detailed by the Commander of the Camp of Clinch County, to put Thompson out of the way. They were headed by Shimmie Timmerson, formerly sheriff of that county; a man notable for his unusual brute force and personal resolution.

The Klan approached Thompson’s gin-house on the night of the assault, cautiously, and as they supposed, unobserved. Each one of them was well armed, and disguised in black gowns, masks and hats.

Thompson, who had been constantly on the watch, discovered them upon their first appearance. He relied upon the solid door of the gin-house, which he supposed would withstand a much heavier shock than it did. It gave way upon the first assault, which was made with a heavy piece of timber, battered against it by the assailants; and which shivered it to splinters.

As the door crashed in, Thompson opened such a rapid fire upon the marauders, as to lead them to suppose that the gin-house was full of armed men. This belief had been strengthened, from the fact that its only occupant shouted simultaneously with the discharge of his weapons: “Give it to ’em, boys! Don’t spare a man.”

Timmerman (the ex-sheriff), who led this gang, fell at the first fire, seriously though not mortally wounded. Several others of the party bit the dust, and the entire band at once beat an ignominous retreat—bearing with[Pg 78] them their wounded; and leaving their single-handed and brave opponent master of the situation.

The most singular and unexpected result of this was, that the band were so thoroughly chagrined at their failure, that they had a quarrel among themselves after leaving the place, and charged their defeat upon Timmerman, who led the van—and whom they adjudged guilty of death on the spot, on the ground that their defeat was due to his bad management.

This sentence would actually have been executed upon him, but for the interposition of some of the Klan, who declared their belief that Timmerman could not recover from the wounds he had already received, and that he might as well be left to die in the woods; that they did not think he was a traitor, and hence ought not to suffer a traitor’s doom.

The ex-sheriff was greatly weakened from the loss of blood, caused by these wounds, and was so thoroughly panic-stricken at the idea that he might possibly be murdered by his associates, that he swooned, and his body was carried nearly a mile into the wood, where his “brethren” of the Camp threw it down, and left him.

On the following day Mrs. Timmerman, having missed her husband, employed a gang of negroes to go in search of him. The hunt was successful, and the wounded man was removed to his house; where, after the most careful nursing, he was partially restored to health, but was so badly crippled as to be unable ever again to perform manual labor.

The treachery and inhumanity of these men towards one of their own number so enraged Timmerman that he declared himself ready to expose their whole operations, their modes of working, and their secrets; and it was from him and Mr. Thompson that the writer obtained the facts, as herein set forth. This raid ended the operations of the Clinch County Ku Klux Klan, for[Pg 79] sometime, so far as the influential whites were concerned.

Outrages upon negroes were continued, however, but with less severity—the subsequent vigorous action of the Government in enforcing the laws, in other parts of the country, being felt to some degree in that place.

The outrages committed by members of the Klans, upon both individuals and property, in the county of Chatham, and in Moore county, N. C., were so numerous and oppressive, during the spring of 1871, and finally became so brutal in their character as to occasion the direst consternation among the whole negro population, as well as among such of the whites as dared to exercise the right of suffrage in accordance with their own convictions, which were not in accord with the tenets maintained by the Ku Klux or democracy of the place.

About this period, the more intelligent of the colored people were in the habit of gathering together at stated times, for consultation in company with the friendly whites, as to the course it was deemed best for them to pursue for the protection and security of their lives.

A favorite place for holding these meetings, was at the dwelling of Mrs. Sallie Gilmore—a woman then residing with her family in Moore county.

These frequent assemblages were soon brought to the notice of the Camp in Moore county, and it was decided that such an example should be made of the parties as would deter others from pursuing a similar course; and compel these to abandon their radical views, or quit the country.

The house occupied by Mrs. Gilmore, was rather of the better class, and Mrs. G. was known as an intelligent[Pg 80] woman, who, in her sympathy with the colored race, was anxious for the day when the rights and privileges guaranteed them by the Constitution and the laws, could be enjoyed without molestation.

The opinions and teachings of Mrs. Gilmore becoming known, the heresy was sufficient for the Klan to commence a crusade upon her and her family, and an edict was issued that she, and all the others found upon her premises, should be scourged.

Thirty men of the Klan were, accordingly, detailed to carry out the order, and the “visitation” was fixed for the night of April 15th, 1871. The Klan were disguised, as usual, and were under the leadership of Roderick J. Bryan, a prominent citizen of Moore county, who was violently opposed to Republican principles. They met and organized in a field about a mile from Mrs. Gilmore’s house, where they held a counsel, and finally completed arrangements for making the proposed raid.

Saturday night (the night in question) was the favorite time when the negroes met there, but, on this particular evening there chanced to be but three present, besides Mrs. Gilmore, her son and daughter, and a young woman named Mary Godfrey.

For greater security, no lights were used when these meetings were held, and when the Klan arrived, the place was found to be entirely darkened. The doors were at once broken in, and Murkerson McLane, one of the negroes, taking advantage of the darkness, crept through the doorway stealthily, and darted towards the woods; but he was observed by some of the Klan, who pursued and soon came up with him.

They had fired upon him as he ran, and when overtaken, he had sank down exhausted, and begged hard for his life. Roderick Bryan and Garner Watson replied to his earnest supplications for life by discharging their revolvers at him a second time. Both shots took[Pg 81] effect. McLane gave a spasmodic leap into the air, and dropped motionless by the roadside. Supposing him dead the band left him there, where he lingered through the night in great agony, and died next morning.

Having murdered McLane, his pursuers returned to Mrs. Gilmore’s house, where the rest of their party were awaiting them before commencing their inhuman indecencies. A light had been struck, and Mrs. Gilmore, her son and daughter, the negroes, and Mary Godfrey, were found fastened to the bed, in the most indecent positions. The negroes were first released, and were fearfully beaten with clubs and twisted switches, until they became utterly unconscious, when they were rudely dragged to the doorway, and their bleeding bodies tumbled, unceremoniously, into the mud.

Mrs. Gilmore’s son and daughter were then stripped of their clothing and compelled, in this condition, to dance, for the edification of their tormentors; the music of this wretched exhibition being provided by the switches in the hands of the Klan, who applied them to the naked bodies of their victims with terrible severity, mocking them wickedly, meantime, as they were forced through the unwilling and miserable antics they performed!

The son was entirely nude, but the daughter was allowed to retain her chemise. Both became exhausted, and sank down under the terrible punishment inflicted upon them, and the vigorous switching kept up, failed to revive them into further action. The attentions of the Klan were then directed towards Mrs. Gilmore.

“We can do better than that,” said another; “we can lick the d— nigger-loving blood out of her.”

[Pg 82]Mrs. Gilmore, now upwards of fifty years old, was then seized and thrown violently upon the floor. Her clothes were drawn up over her head, and the cotton under garments covering her limbs were rudely torn off, exposing her naked person to the demons in human form who surrounded her. The switches were then applied with all the vigor of which the executioners were capable. The old lady uttered a few heart-rending shrieks, but speedily fainted, and continued unconscious during the remainder of the infliction.

The punishment of the young woman, Mary Godfrey, was reserved to the last. She was stripped of every thread of clothing, and was thus compelled to experience the shame of indecent exposure, added to her other tortures. During the process of scourging this young woman the vilest and most obscene epithets were bandied about by the Klan, and she was subjected to many other indignities.

She sank under the treatment at last, and lie upon the floor, her life apparently extinct. Cold water was dashed over the faces and bodies of these unfortunate women, who, by this means, were rallied sufficiently to render them conscious enough to listen to the final edict of the Klan, which was, “To cease indulging in and promulgating their heresies, from that hour forward, and abandon the country, on pain of certain death!” With this admonition the defenders of the white man’s government left the house.

Of a truth, “all cruelty springs from wickedness.” But the weakness which could prompt the brutality—exhibited in such cases as those above recorded—is utterly inexcusable in any being wearing the shape of man.

The brutal whipping of these inoffensive women, and the murder of the negro McLane, add one more to the many evidences of the degradation to which the members of the Ku Klux Klan had reduced themselves, in[Pg 83] their endeavors to crush out freedom of thought and expression, and compel adherence to their own peculiar tenets. Thank God, and the wisdom that now guides and controls the destinies of the nation, these dark hours of the Republic, fruitful with scenes like those described above, are passing away. A gleam of light appears in the horizon, as a glad harbinger of the dawn that shall usher in the day when

“All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning justice lift aloft her scale;
Peace o’er the world her olive wand extend,
And white robed innocence from heaven descend.”

On the night of the 16th of June, 1871, two negroes, named John Stanford and Edward Nash, were proceeding to their homes, near Oltewah, Hamilton County, Tennessee, when they were met in the road by some fifteen men armed and disguised, who ordered them to stop. They were then interrogated by the leader of the band as to why they had voted the Radical ticket at the previous election. Stanford replied that they had done it because it was right. One of the band said:

“There’s a sting in that ticket, and you may as well have the whole of it,” at the same time striking at Stanford with a wooden club.

The latter is a very powerful negro, and having[Pg 84] some spirit, resented the attempted injury, dodged the blow, and instantly seizing his assailant, threw him heavily to the earth. Nash showed fight also, but being a much weaker man, was soon overpowered and pinioned fast. Several of the band seized Stanford, who, from his superior strength, dashed them one side, and darted away, followed by half a dozen of the Klan.

As he ran, he managed to pick up a piece of board in the road with which he turned on his pursuers with the intention of defending himself, when a well-directed shot struck his elbow, shattering the bone, and compelling him to drop the board, and again attempt to save himself by flight. A second shot struck him in the ankle, and impeded his further progress. His pursuers again came up with and secured him, and conveyed him back to where Nash was pleading for his life.

A council was held by the Klan, in which it was decided that the negroes should be severely whipped, and if ever known to again vote the radical ticket, they should die.

Stanford was tied to a tree, his immense strength still being feared by the band, and was beaten until entirely insensible. Nash received a similar castigation. Both the negroes were then untied and placed across the driveway of the road so that a wagon in passing would be likely to run over them, unless they should in the mean time become conscious, and get out of the way.

In his desperate struggle with the band, Stanford had displaced one of the masks, which enabled him to recognize a man named Goal Martin, who lived in the vicinity. Upon the statement of these negroes, and from evidence furnished by other corroborating circumstances, several of the members of the band committing these outrages were arrested and brought to appropriate punishment.

On the night of the 23d of November, 1871, there assembled in the woods near Cross Plains, Alabama, a band of men armed and disguised as the White Brotherhood. Their persons were enveloped in long white gowns, white masks covered their faces, high white conical hats surmounted their heads, their hands were encased in white gloves, and white stockings were drawn over and completely covered their boots.

The object of this gathering was the punishment of one William Fletcher, a white Unionist and Radical, who had the temerity to vote the Republican ticket, advocate the supremacy of the Government, and aid the officers thereof in the enforcement of the laws. These were crimes in the eyes of the Ku Klux Klan sufficient to warrant their taking the offender in hand. The customary warning was not sent in this case, but a friendly hand penned a note to Fletcher, informing him of the danger, but this, unfortunately, never reached him.

At the time of the assembling of the band, as above stated, the “Night Hawks”[1] of the Camp came up with the intelligence that Fletcher was then in a grocery store kept by a man named Flanders, and that it would be better to decoy him out of there, and get him on the road towards the woods, where he could be the more easily mastered.

Fletcher was a cool, resolute and brave man, was supposed to be well armed, and the members of the Klan knew that unless some strategy was used with him, some of their number must suffer the consequences. One of the Klan, named N. G. Scott, was[Pg 86] accordingly detailed to decoy Fletcher away. Scott removed his disguise, and started for the store, followed at a convenient distance by several members of the band. He was successful in his undertaking, and in about twenty minutes he and his intended victim were walking down the road, in the direction of the ambuscade.

In a moment more, the Klan sprang upon and overpowered Fletcher. Pistols were presented at his head, threatenings of death were made if he uttered a cry; a towel was tied tightly across his eyes as a bandage, and he was led away to the woods on the north side of Cross Plains. Upon reaching the woods, his coat and vest were removed, and he was stood up with his face pressed hard against a tree. His arms were drawn around the trunk of the tree, and tied together, and his legs were firmly secured by ropes.

John Yeateman, who had charge of the proceedings of the Klan that night, then stepped forward, and told Fletcher to say his prayers, as he had but a short time to live; that it had first been the intention to give him a whipping and let him go, but that they had now decided to whip him to death.

Fletcher replied by asking if there was no mercy to be accorded him, and inquired to know for what he was to be killed. The only answer to this was that they never gave mercy to the “infernal radicals, who wanted niggers to rule the country.” This remark was followed by his shirt being torn completely off his back.

Meantime the “executioners,” who had gone for the “rods,” returned, and upon the order of their leader fell to their work, cutting the back of the poor victim most dreadfully, and causing him to lose all his stoicism at last, and shriek from the effects of the blows. The “executioners” becoming exhausted, Yeateman himself seized a knife, and cutting away the garments that[Pg 87] encased Fletcher’s lower limbs, took a “rod,” and commenced beating him about the loins with great ferocity.

Fletcher fainted under the punishment, and as his screams had ceased, Yeateman desisted, remarking, “There’s one Radical vote less, by ——.”

The band continued consulting together for some time, when, Fletcher being heard to groan, one of the Klan, named James Bierd, said: “He ain’t finished yet; I reckon he’d better have the whole of it.”

Yeateman then approached the miserable victim, and having succeeded in arousing him to consciousness, asked: “Have you anything to say before you die?”

Fletcher responded faintly, saying: “Write to my mother, Mrs. William Fletcher, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and say how and why I died.” In a moment afterwards he asked: “Is there no chance to live?”

The band consulted together again, when Yeateman said: “There is just one chance for you, and that is that you agree to leave the State in three hours, and never come back.”

Fletcher gladly gave the required promise. He was then untied, and two of the band supporting him upon either side, led him to the railroad track. The bandage was then taken from his eyes, and he was told he must walk on, and that if he looked back, he would be shot. A row of revolvers pointed at him gave evidence that he was not being trifled with, and summoning all the resolution and strength which he could command, he slowly hobbled away.

William Fletcher is no mythical creation. He lives to-day, a scarred and maimed monument of the demoniac brutality that instigated his scourging for opinion’s sake; his property destroyed, his health ruined for life, his spirit crushed and broken. The naturally indignant reader will ask if justice has overtaken the[Pg 88] miscreants who committed this outrage, and will be gratified to know that it has; and that the principal offenders have felt the weight of the strong arm of the law, now being vigorously enforced throughout the South against the execrable Klan to which they belonged, and in whose interest, and that of bigotry and persecution, they committed this dreadful outrage.

The preceding stories of wrongs and outrages committed by the Ku Klux Klan, and those that follow, serve in a degree to show the extent to which persecutions for opinion’s sake were carried. It was the intention of the leaders to intimidate the masses, that further opposition to the principles promulgated by the Ku Klux Klan, or Southern Democracy, should cease altogether. They were wiley enough to see, however, that silence, while it may often give assent, can rarely be construed as an endorsement of that which is utterly repugnant to the human heart.

Hence, plans were adopted for the dissemination of principles in violent antagonism to the Government and the Administration. It was not only hinted at that a change of Administration would effect the ends desired by the Ku Klux Orders; but it was openly declared by the bolder ones that such an event would give the South more than it had ever hoped to obtain, even had the war been a success to them instead of to the nation at large.

As an illustration of the feeling of some of these leaders, who were men of property and influence, and owned plantations in the interior, the following conversation is given. This conversation actually occurred upon the Moore plantation, situated upon the Tuscaloosa and Lexington Turnpike.

Moore had been a most uncompromising rebel, and was one of the first to join the Ku Klux Camp in his[Pg 89] vicinity. He was continually haranguing his laborers in the interest of Ku Kluxism and democracy, cursing the Government and the Administration, and swearing death to all who upheld them. One of his hands, whom he had but recently employed (September, 1871), said to him:

“What shall we do to break up this cursed Government, and have things as we want them?”

Moore replied: “There is a movement on foot all over the South that will drive every d——d Yankee out of it before long, and give us things all our own way.”

“Good,” said the laborer, “I’d like to know the programme, and get posted in that thing; I’d take a big hand in it!”

Moore being now convinced that he had the right kind of a tool for the intended work, then said:

“We’ve got the right thing now to fix all the niggers and Yankees with that don’t go as we want them to; we don’t care a d—— for the general government. It can go to ——, where it ought to. They may pass an hundred more Ku Klux bills, and it won’t do them a bit of good. The Ku Klux are resting just now; but they are not asleep. They have got the niggers and radicals in pretty good train, so they don’t dare say anything. All we want is a Democratic President, and that must come sure the next election, and then we can run things to suit ourselves.”

If Mr. Moore ever sees this faithful transcript of his disloyal speech, delivered upon his own plantation, on the 12th of September, 1871, he may begin to get some idea that the farm hands by whom he was surrounded were not all as badly poisoned with hatred to the radicals as he was, and that one of them at least had the temerity to treasure up and repeat the above conversation. It is here produced as an evidence of the sentiments that pervaded the minds of the leaders;[Pg 90] and to set all doubt at rest as to its authenticity, it may be added that it is a matter of record, to be seen and read of all men.

As an evidence that neither color or nationality formed any protection against the evil machinations of the Ku Klux Klan, the case of Henry Kaufmann, a well-to-do German residing in Bell County, Texas, may be cited.

Kaufmann had come to this country after the war of the Rebellion, and, having some means and an extensive knowledge as a stock raiser, made his way South, finally locating in Texas, as the place best adapted for the business of raising stock, which was one he intended to pursue. His family consisted of his wife and two children, a boy and girl, aged respectively nine and eleven years.

Texas at this time was the scene of many outrages, but the good-natured German was for a long time unable to comprehend their significance. Like most of his countrymen, he entertained republican sentiments; they were the sentiments of his heart, while at home, in the land of his fathers, and he had supposed, that in America, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, he would find them in all their purity, upheld and expressed without fear, and honored by all.

In this respect, he was doomed to bitter disappointment. The nearest neighbor to Kaufmann, was a man named McPherson, originally from the North, but who had for some years resided in Texas, and was a thorough-going Unionist. He did not hesitate, even among all the tumult and disorder, by which he was surrounded, to express his union sentiments, and had been repeatedly warned by the Ku Klux that he must change his course.

[Pg 91]As he paid no heed to these threats, he received a visitation during the Spring of 1871, which utterly ruined him, and from which he escaped with his life, only by the aid of Kaufmann. It appears that the Klan having beat McPherson almost to death, gave him twenty-four hours in which to leave the country, threatening to kill him if he did not do so. Suffering terribly from the dreadful scourging, McPherson was just able to get as far as Kaufmann’s house, where he sought protection until such time as he might be able to travel and get away from the place.

The good-natured German, filled with the humane instincts, natural to his people, at once took the refugee into his house, and cared for him for several days, without dreaming that he would incur the displeasure of anyone for such an act. He nursed McPherson tenderly for some four days, when the latter, dreading that the Klan might discover, and destroy, not only him, but his generous benefactor, left the house at night, and removed himself as far as possible from his persecutors.

The fact of his having been harbored by Kaufmann, became known to the Klan, however, by some means, and they forthwith classed the latter as a radical. On the third night after McPherson’s departure, about eight o’clock in the evening, the unsuspecting German was sitting with his wife and children before a log-fire—as the weather was still chilly—when the door was unceremoniously burst in and a score of the Klan filled the room.

Kaufmann was rudely seized and a demand made upon him to know what he had done with that d—d radical McPherson.

To this he made reply that he “didn’t know such mans.” Upon this, one of the band struck him a severe blow, telling him they meant to learn him not to interfere with their business. Mrs. Kaufmann implored them[Pg 92] in broken English, not to hurt her husband; he had done nothing, and they had made a mistake.

“He’s done enough,” said Butch Williams, the leader of the crowd, “You can’t make any mistake on these dutchmen, they are all d—d radicals anyhow. Its born in ’em, but by —— they shan’t spit it out here.”

Kaufmann was then securely pinioned and whipped until he became unconscious. When the castigation was ended, the leader turning to Mrs. Kaufmann, and pointing to the bruised and bleeding body of her husband, as it lie upon the floor, said:—

“Now if that dirty, dutch scallawag ever comes to himself, you tell him to sell out and get away from here, or we’ll be the death of the whole of you and burn the house over your heads. We’ll give him just ten days to do it in.”

Kaufmann did revive at last, and when he learned the dread message which the Klan had left behind, saw with sorrow that he must relinquish his pleasant home, and become a wanderer; but the necessities of the case admitted of no other course. His property was disposed of at a ruinous sacrifice, and with his wife and little ones, he made his way to Illinois, where he now is.

It would seem that the nationality of Kaufmann, and his probable ignorance of what constituted an offence in the eyes of the Ku Klux, should have saved him from this terrible visitation, so fraught with physical chastisement and financial ruin; but to the vision of men who regarded no law, who only saw the attainment of their despicable ends, through fraud and violence, he appeared a “radical by nature.”—One, who being a German, must necessarily be a Republican, and hence they could make no mistake in scourging him.

In the month of May, 1871, an intelligent mulatto—in whose veins flowed the blood of some ardent advocate of the white man’s race, unquestionably judging from his light color—whose name was William Washington, resided in a small shanty or cabin, about two miles and a-half from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Washington had been a slave in the early part of his life, and was one of those unfortunates who chafed under the abuses and the yoke that held him in servitude to a “master.”

He was high-spirited, and had learned to read and write before the Emancipation Proclamation had given him freedom, to act upon his own volition, untrammelled by his nominal “owner.” Upon becoming a freeman, he left Montgomery County, Ala., near which place he had been reared, and settled in the vicinity of Tuscaloosa.

He was quiet in his deportment, orderly and well disposed. He had given general satisfaction to all who had employed him. But in the early part of the year 1870, it began to be observed that Washington was actively exerting an influence over the negroes in the vicinity, to such an extent as to cause the Ku Klux Camp organized under Philip J. Brady, as Commander to take the alarm.

The mulatto Washington was charged with being a Republican, of the radical sort, with presuming to teach the negroes to read, (shocking offence?) and of instructing them in Northern principles. This wouldn’t answer, surely. And so William was “warned” by the Camp that he must cease this kind of practice, and leave the country at once.

He paid no heed to this warning, and a second one came, notifying him that unless he departed within the succeeding thirty days, he should suffer death—for[Pg 94] “though the moon was then bright, it would turn to blood—K. K. K.” Instead of seeing this fearful summons in the light it was intended he should, the mulatto industriously circulated the story that he went well armed always, and was ready to die, if he must, in defence of his principles. But that “he wouldn’t run away—no how.”

Matters went on thus for nearly a year. On the night of the 15th of May, 1871, Washington shut and barred his cabin door, as was his custom upon retiring, placed his gun and a single barrelled pistol by his bedside, and turned in, to sleep. About eleven o’clock, he was suddenly awaked by a thumping upon the closed shutter of the only window in the hut, and upon inquiring who was there, he recognized the voice of a friendly negro, outside, who answered—

“Day’s a pow’r o’ men a comin’ up der road, yender—an’ yer muss look out for yar se’f Wash’n’t’n, dass a fack.”

This timely and kindly warning from his friend was very gratefully listened to by Washington, who replied that his informer must try to get help to him, if possible. And quickly dressing himself, the former slave awaited the assault which he now anticipated, from the look of affairs outside, so near his hut.

The mounted band rode up very soon afterwards, and having been refused admittance, some of them dashed in the door. Washington was a powerful man, well built and very muscular—while his self-possession was always remarkable, when in peril. The interior of the shanty being quite dark, he crouched down in one corner, and fired upon his assailants with the pistol first and then immediately discharged the gun. Both shots took effect, and two of the Klan fell heavily to the floor.

Clubbing his musket, he then desperately rushed upon the enemy, determined, if he must die, that he[Pg 95] would sell his life as dearly as possible; but the odds were altogether too heavy against him. The gun-stock in his brawny hands, was shattered at the first blow struck by his powerful arm, and then the band sprang forward and secured him, though not without a furious struggle. He was at once taken out of the cabin, a rope was placed about his neck, and thrown over the projecting limb of the nearest convenient tree, from which his body was quickly dangling, a lifeless corpse. They hung him without accusation, judge or jury, until he was dead, dead, dead—in accordance with the terms of the bitter oath of the Ku Klux Klan, whose victims are doomed “for opinion’s sake!”

One of the gang had been mortally wounded by Washington’s first shots, and died on the following day. Two others had been seriously hurt, and one of them was crippled for life. The body of Washington was left hanging beneath the tree for several days after this conflict, and until the negroes in the neighborhood gathered courage sufficient to cut it down, and give it decent burial; which they did at night, secretly and mournfully, for their late friend’s sudden and violent death, proved an affliction indeed to the poor creatures, towards whom he had been so kind and clever an instructor and companion.

And thus this poor negro paid the penalty of his offence in being a radical, and like many a one before him who had been similarly sacrificed, “his soul goes marching on.”

Judging from information gathered from the most available sources, it appears that all measures, whether of a political, a religious or educational character, looking[Pg 96] to the elevation of the negro, were strenuously opposed by the Ku Klux Klans, as they had sworn they should be.

The education of the negro was regarded as an especial heresy, not to be tolerated under any circumstances. It was an offence second in magnitude only to that of his voting the Radical ticket, and the face of the Klan was set against it with a resolution that made it a dangerous avocation for any one to engage in. School houses, erected for the purpose of teaching colored children, were burned to the ground, and the teachers scourged, banished or whipped to death.

The testimony of Col. A. P. Huggins, formerly of the Union Army, and subsequently of Monroe County, Mississippi, is pertinent to the point. Col. Huggins, is known as a brave and gallant officer, a man of great physical and moral courage, and of unquestioned veracity. During the month of May, 1870, he became County Superintendent of Schools, for Monroe County, and on the 8th of March following, went into the interior, some eight or ten miles from Aberdeen, the County seat, on business connected with the School Department. He was at this time an Assistant Assessor of Internal Revenue, and improved the opportunity to make several assessments of revenue in the vicinity, staying, by invitation, at the house of a Mr. Ross.

On the night of the day after his arrival at the house of Mr. Ross, (the 9th of March) a band of the Ku Klux, armed and disguised, and numbering about one hundred and twenty, came to the house and compelled Col. Huggins to come out. The chief of the Klan then informed him that they had come to warn him that he must quit the country within ten days that it had been decreed in the camp that he should first be warned, that the warning should be enforced by whipping, and if that did not produce the desired effect, he should be killed by the Klan, and if circumstances were such that he could not be killed by the Klan in a body,[Pg 97] then they were sworn to assassinate him publicly or privately.

Col. Huggins asked them what his offense consisted of, and was answered by the chief, who said:—“You are collecting obnoxious taxes from Southern Gentlemen, to keep damned old Radicals in office. Now I want you to understand that no laws can be enforced in this country, that we do not make ourselves. We don’t like your Radical ways, and we want you to understand it.”

Col. Huggins then asked them if their operations were against the Radical party, and the Chief replied that they were; that they had stood the radicals just as long as they intended to, and they meant to banish or kill every one of them. The Chief then said, “will you leave the country in ten days.” The Colonel replied that he would leave the country when he got ready, and not before. He was then taken about a quarter of a mile from the residence of Mr. Ross, where they halted. He was then ordered to take off his coat, which he refused to do, and it was removed by force.

Twenty-five lashes were then given Col. Huggins, when he was asked if he would leave the country. To this he replied that he would not, that now that they had commenced, they might go on as far as they pleased, as he had just as soon die, as take what he had already received. The whipping was resumed. Col. Huggins remembered hearing the executioners count the number of lashes up to seventy-five, when he fainted. The Klan left him in charge of Mr. Ross, and rode away. The main reason assigned for the punishment of Col. Huggins was that he was a Radical and in favor of educating the negroes.

The case of Cornelius McBride, a young Scotchman who taught a colored school near Sparta, Chickasaw County, is one of unusual cruelty. Being teacher of a[Pg 98] colored school, McBride was classed as a Radical, and beside this, he had come from the North. He was accordingly doomed by the Klan for a visitation.

Between twelve and one o’clock of the Thursday night of the last week in March, 1870, a number of the Klan came to his house, and presenting rifles through the window, ordered McBride to come out. He asked what was wanted, when one of them replied, “come out you d—d yankee.” McBride saw that nothing less than taking his life was intended, and determined to make an effort to escape. He gave a sudden spring through the window, landing directly between the two men who were pointing their rifles, dashed past them and ran to the house of a colored man whom he knew, and where he thought he could get a gun. While he was running, the members of the Klan commenced firing upon him, ordering him to stop, or they would blow his brains out. None of the shots took effect upon him, and he entered the cabin, but before he could get the gun, of which he was in search, the Klan were upon him and secured him.

McBride was then taken about a mile away from the place, having nothing on but his night dress. This was rudely torn from his person, and the executioners were about to commence their work, when he asked them what he was to be whipped for. The leader said, “you want to make the niggers equal to a white man. This is a white man’s country.”

The whipping was then commenced with black gum switches, that stung the flesh and raised it in great ridges at every blow. The torture was so great that the poor victim begged them in God’s name to kill him at once and put him out of misery. The leader said “shooting is too good for this fellow, we’ll hang him when we get through whipping him.” Another one said, “Do you want to be shot?” To which McBride replied, “Yes, I can’t stand this torture, it is horrible.”[Pg 99] He then partially raised himself upon his knees and determined to make one more effort for his life. Standing directly in front of him was one of the Klan, the only one who stood directly in his way, if he should attempt to run.

Stung by the terrible pain of the switch, McBride sprang to his feet, dealt the man in the front of him a tremendous blow, and darting past him scaled a fence, and ran across the open field. The Klan discharged their fire-arms after him, but in a few moments gave up the pursuit. McBride reached the house of a Mr. Walser, and there found protection through the remainder of the night.

Other teachers of colored schools received similar visitations, and colored schools were burned there and in the adjoining counties.

The crusade against Ministers of the Gospel who preached to the freedmen, was then commenced. The Rev. John Avery, of Winston County, was notified that he must appear at a meeting of the Ku Klux; that he must join in with the Klan, and cease his interest in free schools, and upon his refusal, his house was burned over his head. Mr. Avery was a southern man, and a pastor in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Rev. Mr. Galloway, a Congregationalist Minister, of Monroe County, was in the habit occasionally of preaching to the freedmen. During April, 1870, a band of the Ku Klux called upon him at night, and notified him that he must not preach to these people. He continued doing so, however, and received a second warning, accompanied by an intimation, which he did not dare disregard, and he was compelled to relinquish his good work, on pain of banishment or death.

The Rev. Mr. McLachlin, a Methodist Episcopal Preacher, of Oktibbeha County, received various warnings to the same effect, but persisted in his course[Pg 100] until he was finally driven from that county, and dared not return to it.

Scores of similar cases might be cited, all of which are matters of public record, but those above given, serve to show, that the Order of the Ku Klux Klan, is inimical to religion and education, as well as to the politics of those differing with them in their avowed opposition to Republicanism, and their adherence to the Democratic party. These gallant defenders of the white man’s race were determined that no Government but the white man’s should live in the country, and these results they hoped to obtain through the banishment, scourging and killing of negroes, Radicals and Republicans, by which means also, with the aid of their sympathizers at the North, they expected to have a Democratic Administration.

It would seem to have been the design of the leaders of the Ku Klux Klans, in issuing their warnings, to play as much as possible upon the superstitions of the people. These documents were written in a disguised hand, sometimes in coarse language, and contained sentiments intended to inspire terror in the minds of the recipients.

They were usually bordered with designs, representing daggers piercing bleeding hearts, death’s heads and cross bones, and various grotesque devices. Some of them had a spice of grim humor, which, although fun to the Klan who issued these missives, meant banishment, scourging or death to those who received them. Specimens of these, the originals of which fell into the hands of the United States Officials during their attempts to break up the Ku Klux organization are here given verbatim et literatim.

Five persons residing in White County, Georgia,[Pg 101] having made themselves politically obnoxious to the Klan, received the following:—

“Read the Contents, K. K. K.

O ye, horsemen of Manassas. Bounce, ye dead men that is now living on earth. We are the men that I am talking about. We are of K. K. K. Now Sandy Holcumb, Green Holcumb, Daniel McCollum, and E. Dickson, your days are numbered. We shot the old Belt weather[2] a little too low. We aimed to shoot him through the heart; and if you don’t all get away from this country very soon, your Radical hearts will be shot out of you, and we had just as leave shoot you as for you to get away.

K. K. K.”

The parties named in the above warning did not leave, as the United States Officials came into the county about that time and arrested nearly one hundred members of the Camp from which the document was issued.

At Irwington, Ga., the colored people determined upon holding a “protracted meeting,” and colored preachers assembled there from all quarters. The meetings are described as having been most orderly, but they were deemed inimical to the interests of the Ku Klux, and the following warning was issued and posted near the place of meeting.

“K. K. K.

The devil is getting up a new team, and wants some nigger preachers to work in the lead. If you stay here until we come again, the devil will be certain to have his team completed.

K. K. K.”

[Pg 102]The consternation of the freedmen was so great upon the receipt of the above warning that not a colored preacher dared to show himself in the vicinity for months afterwards.

The Klan oppressed everyone not members of or in sympathy with their organization, and sought to over-ride all law and equity, upon the principle that might made right. To this end they issued warnings to business men who had come into their vicinity from the North, and who were disposed to invest capital and establish trade, but who were not of the right stripe politically—and this meant who were not sound Democrats. Numerous instances of this kind are on record.

Two enterprising business men—Messrs. Gottschalk and Hughes—purchased a mill property in Atalla, Ala., belonging to one J. B. Spitzer, and made their arrangements to get out lumber. Messrs. Gottschalk and Hughes were under suspicion of not sympathizing with the Klan, politically, and a pretence was made that Mr. Spitzer, from whom they had purchased the saw mill, was indebted to persons, whom the new firm were politely requested to accept as their creditors. This they refused to do, and the following warning was sent them.

“Den of the Great Grand High Cyclops Of Etowah County, Ala.

To Messrs. Gottschalk & Hughes:

His royal highness, your great, grand high worthy master, notices with much pleasure that you have purchased and become the owners of the saw mill, lately owned by Mr. J. B. Spitzer. He understands very well, everything connected with that mill transaction, and it is his great pleasure that you call on the creditors of J. B. Spitzer in the morning, and approve of the debts[Pg 103] of Mr. Spitzer. He wishes an answer to-night what you will do in the matter.

By order of his royal highness,
The Great grand Cyclops of Etowah County, Ala.”

Messrs. Gottschalk & Hughes paid no heed to this missive, and on the night of the 13th of November, 1871, the Klan assembled and set fire to the mill, destroying it entirely, and compelling its new proprietors to leave the place.

Mr. William Gober, residing in Dade County, Georgia, was an avowed Unionist and Republican. He was active in politics and expressed his sentiments with great freedom, and was consequently classed by the Ku Klux as a carpet-bagger and a scallawag, and warned to leave the country, in the following terms:—

“Death. K. K. K. Death.

Take heed for the pale horse is coming. His step is terrible; lightning is in his nostrils. He looks for a rider. Now this is to warn you William Gober, that carpet-baggers and scallawags cannot live in this country. If you are not gone in ten days, we shall come to you, and the pale horse shall have his rider.

By order. K. K. K.”

Mr Gober smiled at this document, but the sequel shew that it meant something more than a threat. At midnight on the 13th of September, 1871, his house was surrounded by about twenty of the Klan, armed and disguised. He was then dragged out and whipped with great severity. Previous to the infliction of the punishment he fought desperately with his assailants, and succeeded in displacing several of their masks, and recognizing them.

[Pg 104]He was left for dead by the Klan, but recovered his consciousness, and secretly made his way to Atlanta, where he made an affidavit, upon which six of the parties were arrested and held for trial.

Thousands of warnings, similar to the above, many of them obscene and blasphemous, were sent to as many persons in various parts of the South.

One more is herewith appended, as showing one of the extremes to which the Ku Klux went in their crusade against Radicals. It was found hanging to a small dagger, stuck into one of the doors of the University, at Tuscaloosa, Ala., with several others of similar import, addressed to some of the students of the University, and read as follows:—

“K. K. K.

Student’s University.

David Smith.—You have received one notice from us and this shall be our last. You, nor no other d—d son of a d—d Radical traitor, shall stay at our University. Leave here in less than ten days, for in that time we will visit the place, and it will not be well for you to be found out there. The State is ours and so shall the University be. Written by the Secretary.

By order of the Klan.”

One of the most brutal outrages to be found, even among the dark and bloody records of the Ku Klux Klan, was enacted on the night of the 10th of April, 1870, at the village of Cross Plains, near Paytona, Ala. The details of this occurrence here given, have been collated from various sources, a portion of them having been obtained from eye witnesses to the affair.

[Pg 105]William C. Luke, a Canadian by birth, and a gentleman of education, had come to Paytona, and taken charge of the day school there. He was a prominent worker in the cause of religion, entertained and advocated Republican principles and took an earnest interest in the welfare of the colored people, by whom he was surrounded. This drew down upon him the malice of the Klan, and he was doomed to death. Luke had preached to the negroes at times, and had taken occasion in his sermons to express his opinion that negroes were now entitled to the same rights and privileges under the Constitution of the United States as the whites.

This course could not be tolerated by the K. K. K., and they only awaited a favorable opportunity for carrying out the Edict of the Camp.

On the 10th of April, Mr. Luke had preached at Paytona, and on the evening of that day had returned to Cross Plains. He was there informed that the Ku Klux had determined to come for him that night, and at once returned to Paytona, accompanied by several negroes, who seemed fearful that he might meet with violence. Up to ten o’clock nothing had transpired to cause alarm, and Mr. Luke retired.

Between twelve and one o’clock he was aroused from his slumbers by three armed and disguised men, who informed him there had been a fracas in the village of Cross Plains, about which it was thought he knew something, and he was requested to go with them to the latter place. He signified his willingness to do so, dressed himself and went out with the party. Upon getting out of the house he was surprised at seeing a large number of men similarly disguised, and who had in custody the five negroes who had accompanied him to Paytona.

One of the negroes named Jacob Moore, endeavored to break loose from his captors, and had a severe fight with them. Being a very powerful man he [Pg 106]succeeded in breaking away and run down the road. The Klan fired several shots after him, two of which took effect, and he dropped by the road side. Mr. Luke and the remaining negroes were then taken to the northern border of Paytona, on the Cross Plains line, where the band halted. The intended victim was now convinced that his death was meditated, and he said to the leader of the Klan, one Clem Reid, “Am I about to die.”

“Yes, you have preached your d—d heresies long enough,” was the answer. “If you’ve got any prayers to say, you had better be about it.”

Mr. Luke replied calmly, “I am not afraid to die, nor for such a cause. It is hard to die in such a way.”

Leave having been granted him to pray he uttered a most fervent appeal to God, soliciting mercy for himself and the negroes, and forgiveness for those who were persecuting them and him for righteousness and opinion’s sake. His prayers were rudely cut short, a rope was placed about his neck, the end thrown over the limb of a tree and his body suspended in the air. The four negroes were next dispatched.

John Goff, an eye witness to the proceedings states that the Klan tried to hang two of the negroes, named Cæsar Fredericks and William Hall, at once, but not being able to make the bodies balance, Pat Craig, a member of the Klan, shot Fredericks in the mouth, while Clay Keith murdered Hall in a similar manner. The other negroes were then hung singly, their bodies being drawn up slowly to increase their torture.

The defenders of the “white man’s race” then separated, fully satisfied with having performed one more service in support of the “White Man’s Government.” This outrage was so flagrant that the farce of an investigation was gone through with, and the suspected parties arrested. An examination resulted in their being discharged. The witnesses were all members of the Ku Klux Klan, and had sworn to regard no oath[Pg 107] that would injure one of the brotherhood, and the murderers of William C. Luke still go unwhipt of justice. And these are the people who talk of their rights, of the oppression of Radical rule, of their determination to establish a Democratic Administration.

It seemed to be the intent of the orders of the Ku Klux Klan everywhere throughout the South, to impress upon the people, the fallacy of attempting to entertain any opinion inimical to those put forth by the Klan. The attacks of the Klan were first directed to such of the people as were bold enough to declare themselves unionists and republicans. Scourging, banishment or murder were the measures adopted to enforce silence, and these terrible agents proved fully potent to accomplish the end.

This enforced silence, however, appeared to be dangerous, and was certainly more ominous to the order, than the freest utterances of the most radical views. “Those not with the order, must certainly be against it,” said the leaders, and a new crusade was forthwith inaugurated. The object of the new movement was to compel every able-bodied white man to join the Order and become bound to it by oaths, administered in the Camp.

Notices were accordingly issued by the respective Chiefs of Dominion from every Camp, requiring the presence of parties, for initiation into the Order. When these were not heeded, they were followed by warnings. If the parties were still refractory, then they received a visitation.

The two first cases arising under this new arrangement,[Pg 108] were those of Paul Myers and John Chapman, of Jefferson County, Ala. These gentlemen were joint proprietors of a small store, and while inwardly opposed to the principles of the Ku Klux, had outwardly conducted themselves in such a manner as to give no cause of offence to the Klan. They were surprised in common with many others, upon receiving a notice to appear for initiation into the Jefferson County Camp of the K. K., and they resolutely refused to comply with the request.

They were then warned, that they would be “Ku Kluxed” if they did not come, and the threat was carried out, both of them being severely whipped, and their store pillaged. A second warning was sent to them, and this was succeeded by a second visitation, more terrible than the first. They were so badly beaten at this time, that their lives were despaired of, and as soon as they were able, they closed their store and left the place.

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.

[Pg 109]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[Pg 110] 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.

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[Pg 111] 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.”

[Pg 112]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[Pg 113] 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?

[Pg 114]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.”

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[Pg 116] 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[Pg 117] 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[Pg 118] 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.”

[Pg 119]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[Pg 120] 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[Pg 121] 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—

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

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

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.

[Pg 122]Then, the basis of representation was property, or property and slaves, or slaves by enumerating three-fifths of all.

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[Pg 123] 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[Pg 124] 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 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 [Pg 125]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[Pg 126] 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:

[Pg 127]“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[Pg 128] 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[Pg 129] 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.”

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,[Pg 130] 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[Pg 131] 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,[Pg 132] 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 [Pg 133]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 [Pg 134]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[Pg 135] 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.

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[Pg 138] 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[Pg 139] 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?

[Pg 140]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 [Pg 141]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.

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.

[Pg 142]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[Pg 143] 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[Pg 144] 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.

[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.

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