to
have been met even half-way. The bitterness and defiance exhibited
towards the United States under such circumstances is without a parallel
in the history of the world. In return for our leniency we receive only
an insulting denial of our authority. In return for our kind desire for
the resumption of fraternal relations we receive only an insolent
assumption of rights and privileges long since forfeited. The crime we
have punished is paraded as a virtue, and the principles of republican
government which we have vindicated at so terrible a cost are denounced
as unjust and oppressive.

"If we add to this evidence the fact that, although peace has been
declared by the President, he has not, to this day, deemed it safe to
restore the writ of _habeas corpus_, to relieve the insurrectionary
States of martial law, nor to withdraw the troops from many localities,
and that the commanding general deems an increase of the army
indispensable to the preservation of order and the protection of loyal
and well-disposed people in the South, the proof of a condition of
feeling hostile to the Union and dangerous to the Government throughout
the insurrectionary States would seem to be overwhelming."

This Committee recommended a series of coercive measures, the first of
which was the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution,
which disqualified for all office, either under the United States or
under any State, any person who having in any capacity taken an oath of
allegiance to the United States afterwards engaged in rebellion or gave
aid and comfort to the rebels. This denied the _jus honorum_ to all the
leading men at the South who had survived the war. In addition to it, an
Act was passed in March, 1867, which put all the rebel States under
military rule until a constitution should have been framed by a
Convention elected by all males over twenty-one, except such as would be
excluded from office by the above-named constitutional amendment if it
were adopted, which at that time it had not been. Another Act was passed
three weeks later, prescribing, for voters in the States lately in
rebellion, what was known as the "ironclad oath," which excluded from
the franchise not only all who had borne arms against the United States,
but all who, having ever held any office for which the taking an oath of
allegiance to the United States was a qualification, had afterwards ever
given "aid or comfort to the enemies thereof." This practically
disfranchised all the white men of the South over twenty-five years old.

On this legislation there grew up, as all the world now knows, what was
called the "carpet-bag" _regime_. Swarms of Northern adventurers went
down to the Southern States, organized the ignorant negro voters,
constructed State constitutions to suit themselves, got themselves
elected to all the chief offices, plundered the State treasuries,
contracted huge State debts, and stole the proceeds in connivance with
legislatures composed mainly of negroes, of whom the most intelligent
and instructed had been barbers and hotel-waiters. In some of the
States, such as South Carolina and Mississippi, in which the negro
population were in the majority, the government became a mere
caricature. I was in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, in 1872,
during the session of the legislature, when you could obtain the passage
of almost any measure you pleased by a small payment--at that time seven
hundred dollars--to an old negro preacher who controlled the coloured
majority. Under the pretence of fitting up committee-rooms, the private
lodging-rooms at the boarding-houses of the negro members, in many
instances, were extravagantly furnished with Wilton and Brussels
carpets, mirrors, and sofas. A thousand dollars were expended for two
hundred elegant imported china spittoons. There were only one hundred
and twenty-three members in the House of Representatives, but the
residue were, perhaps, transferred to the private chambers of the
legislators.

Now, how did the Southern whites deal with this state of things? Well, I
am sorry to say they manifested their discontent very much in the way
in which the Irish have for the last hundred years been manifesting
theirs. If, as the English opponents of Home Rule seem to think,
readiness to commit outrages, and refusal to sympathize with the victims
of outrages, indicate political incapacity, the whites of the South
showed, in the period between 1866 and 1876, that they were utterly
unfit to be entrusted with the work of self-government. They could not
rise openly in revolt because the United States troops were everywhere
at the service of the carpet-baggers, for the suppression of armed
resistance. They did not send petitions to Congress, or write letters to
the Northern newspapers, or hold indignation meetings. They simply
formed a huge secret society on the model of the "Molly Maguires" or
"Moonlighters," whose special function was to intimidate, flog,
mutilate, or murder political opponents in the night time. This society
was called the "Ku-Klux Klan." Let me give some account of its
operation, and I shall make it as brief as possible. It had become so
powerful in 1871 that President Grant in that year, in his message to
Congress, declared that "a condition of things existed in some of the
States of the Union rendering life and property insecure, and the
carrying of the mails and the collecting of the revenue dangerous." A
Joint Select Committee of Congress was accordingly appointed, early in
1872, to "inquire into the condition of affairs in the late
insurrectionary States, so far as regards the execution of the laws and
the safety of the lives and property of the citizens of the United
States." Its report now lies before me, and it reads uncommonly like the
speech of an Irish Secretary in the House of Commons bringing in a
"Suppression of Crime Bill." The Committee say--

"There is a remarkable concurrence of testimony to the effect that, in
those of the late rebellious States into whose condition we have
examined, the courts and juries administer justice between man and man
in all ordinary cases, civil and criminal; and while there is this
concurrence on this point, the evidence is equally decisive that redress
cannot be obtained against those who commit crimes in disguise and at
night. The reasons assigned are that identification is difficult, almost
impossible; that, when this is attempted, the combinations and oaths of
the order come in and release the culprit by perjury, either upon the
witness-stand or in the jury-box; and that the terror inspired by their
acts, as well as the public sentiment in their favour in many
localities, paralyzes the arm of civil power.

       *       *       *       *       *

"The murders and outrages which have been perpetrated in many counties
of Middle and West Tennessee, during the past few months, have been so
numerous, and of such an aggravated character, as almost baffles
investigation. In these counties a reign of terror exists which is so
absolute in its nature that the best of citizens are unable or unwilling
to give free expression to their opinions. The terror inspired by the
secret organization known as the Ku-Klux Klan is so great, that the
officers of the law are powerless to execute its provisions, to
discharge their duties, or to bring the guilty perpetrators of these
outrages to the punishment they deserve. Their stealthy movements are
generally made under cover of night, and under masks and disguises,
which render their identification difficult, if not impossible. To add
to the secrecy which envelops their operations, is the fact that no
information of their murderous acts can be obtained without the greatest
difficulty and danger in the localities where they are committed. No one
dares to inform upon them, or take any measures to bring them to
punishment, because no one can tell but that he may be the next victim
of their hostility or animosity. The members of this organization, with
their friends, aiders, and abettors, take especial pains to conceal all
their operations.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Your committee believe that during the past six months, the murders--to
say nothing of other outrages--would average one a day, or one for every
twenty-four hours; that in the great majority of these cases they have
been perpetrated by the Ku-Klux above referred to, and few, if any, have
been brought to punishment. A number of the counties of this State
(Tennessee) are entirely at the mercy of this organization, and roving
bands of nightly marauders bid defiance to the civil authorities, and
threaten to drive out every man, white or black, who does not submit to
their arbitrary dictation. To add to the general lawlessness of these
communities, bad men of every description take advantage of the
circumstances surrounding them, and perpetrate acts of violence, from
personal or pecuniary motives, under the plea of political necessity."

Here is some of the evidence on which the report was based.

A complaint of outrages committed in Georgia was referred by the general
of the army, in June, 1869, to the general of the Department of the
South for thorough investigation and report. General Terry, in his
report, made August 14, 1869, says[2]--

"In many parts of the State there is practically no government. The
worst of crimes are committed, and no attempt is made to punish those
who commit them. Murders have been and are frequent; the abuse, in
various ways, of the blacks is too common to excite notice. There can be
no doubt of the existence of numerous insurrectionary organizations
known as 'Ku-Klux Klans,' who, shielded by their disguise, by the
secrecy of their movements, and by the terror which they inspire,
perpetrate crime with impunity. There is great reason to believe that in
some cases local magistrates are in sympathy with the members of these
organizations. In many places they are overawed by them and dare not
attempt to punish them. To punish such offenders by civil proceedings
would be a difficult task, even were magistrates in all cases disposed
and had they the courage to do their duty, for the same influences which
govern them equally affect juries and witnesses."

Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Merrill, who assumed command (in Louisiana) on
the 26th of March, and commenced investigation into the state of
affairs, says (p. 1465)--

"From the best information I can get, I estimate the number of cases of
whipping, beating, and personal violence of various grades, in this
county, since the first of last November, at between three and four
hundred, excluding numerous minor cases of threats, intimidation, abuse,
and small personal violence, as knocking down with a pistol or gun, etc.
The more serious outrages, exclusive of murders and whippings, noted
hereafter, have been the following:--"

He then proceeds with the details of sixty-eight cases, giving the names
of the parties injured, white and black, and including the tearing up of
the railway, on the night before a raid was made by the Ku-Klux on the
county treasury building. The rails were taken up, to prevent the
arrival of the United States troops, who, it was known, were to come on
Sunday morning. The raid was made on that Sunday night while the troops
were lying at Chester, twenty-two miles distant, unable to reach
Yorkville, because of the rails being torn up.

Another witness said: "To give the details of the whipping of men to
compel them to change their mode of voting, the tearing of them away
from their families at night, accompanied with insults and outrage, and
followed by their murder, would be but repeating what has been described
in other States, showing that it is the same organization in all,
working by the same means for the same end. Five murders are shown to
have been committed in Monroe County, fifteen in Noxubee, one in
Lowndes, by the testimony taken in the city of Washington; but the
extent to which school-houses were burnt, teachers whipped, and outrages
committed in this State, cannot be fully given until the testimony taken
by the sub-committee shall have been printed and made ready to report."

There are about eighty, closely printed, large octavo pages of this kind
of testimony given by sufferers from the outrages.

Something was done to suppress the Ku-Klux by a Federal Act passed in
1871, which made offences of this kind punishable in the Federal Courts.
Considerable numbers of them were arrested, tried, and convicted, and
sent to undergo their punishment in the Northern jails. But there was no
complete pacification of the South until the carpet-bag governments were
refused the support of the Federal troops by President Hayes, on his
accession to power in 1876. Then the carpet-bag _rйgime_ disappeared
like a house of cards. The chief carpet-baggers fled, and the government
passed at once into the hands of the native whites. I do not propose to
defend or explain the way in which