K. K. K. AS A FACTOR IN POLITICS.
Late Announcement of the Earl of Beaconsfield before an Assembly of Englishmen—The Secret Societies of Europe—Men of Influence in the Southern States Disclaim the alleged Good Offices of the Klan in the Work of Southern Redemption—Its True Status with Regard to Current Politics—Combining the Offices of Regulator and Vigilante with that of Politician—An Absolutist in all Society Matters—Many who advance the Idea that that Complete Renovation of the Social System Effected through its Means could not have been Accomplished in the Use of less Radical Measures—Inhuman Butcheries, etc., Figments of the Scalawag Imagination—Many of its Acts were Lawless, etc.—A Logical Presentation of the True Theory—How it Injured the Common Cause—Its Generical Belongings—Few Friends Unconnected with its Patronage—Negative Issue which it Introduced into the Great Campaign—Occupying a Voice in Southern Counsels—Unprincipled Plagiaries—Dangerous Sentimentalism Awakened at the North—What the Imaginative Prose of the News-Reporter was Calculated to Do—How it (K. K. K.) Prolonged the “Carpet-Bag” Reign of Terror.
The late announcement of the Earl of Beaconsfield (Mr. D’Israeli), before an assembly of Englishmen, that the pending war against Turkey was the war of the secret societies of Europe, conducted through Prince Milan, as their agent, may induce incredulous persons to give greater heed to the statement which we here make that the movement inaugurated by the secret order known as the Ku-Klux-Klan was a war against radicalism as it formerly existed in the Southern States, waged through its ... allies. If the English premier speaks truth, there is a strong probability that the secret purveyors to whom he refers will achieve their aim, and be crowned with the same reflected glory that has availed to cover a multitude of sins in the instance of the American order, though reflecting people, who take into account the incentives to such measures, can but regard them as intermeddlers of a very base stamp. The cause of religious liberty on the Turkish frontier will not be benefited by this revelation; and, continuing the analogy, there are few men of influence in the Southern States who do not make it a point, whenever occasion offers, to disclaim the alleged good offices of the Klan in the work of Southern redemption.
We have before intimated that, in one of these States, the cause of the allied Democrats and Republicans did receive essential aid from this source, and while we shall not enter into any such exegesis of the question as would show just how far the common cause was aided or retarded by the secret measure, we must be permitted to record a belief that its influence was commonly hurtful.
Every secret society, enterprised with a political end in view, must, in the nature of the case, prove unpopular with the masses of those who wield the franchise, and in not unfrequent instances, as we have anticipated, be deprehended by the very individuals, or parties of individuals, whom they seek to succor. In the instance of the Klan, these conditions were felt with peculiar weight; inasmuch as the people among whom it was domiciled cherished, beside this common feeling, a natural aversion to such influences in politics, derived from their ante bellum experience; and the people of the North, unacquainted with its aims, and grossly unenlightened as to its materiel and claims to social rank, wrote it down a very monster of sedition. It was denounced in public, scoffed at in private, declared to be an outlaw by the legislatures, interpreted as the very essence of crookedness in morals by the courts, fulminated against by the national and State executives, and how, under these severe conditions, it contrived to even exist, is, and must remain, one of the unsolved problems of the “gilded age.”
But, aside from any inherited odium of the quality which we have been discussing, the Klan had obliquities of its own, and a record compiled therefrom which could not fail to photograph it to the world in a very disagreeable light, and obtain for it enemies (and sometimes potential enemies), where it would not otherwise have possessed them. Even its interference in politics was of an illegitimate and unnatural kind, and called forth the constant criticisms of such unprejudiced judges as those who were to reap the benefits of their enterprises would likely prove.
But it did not stop here, and combined the offices of regulator and vigilante with that of politician. It was an absolutist in all society matters, and those who offended in this regard could rarely base a hope of immunity from visitation upon any well-defined precedents to be found among its Domus Dei records. [We have seen, in the various sketches of incidents connected with the Order, and based on its history, which have been given in the progress of this work, the idea of its officiousness in such details rendered prominent, and this has been done, in every instance, with a view to subserve the intelligent aim upon which the work is based: in a word, to render it a true reflector of the K. K. K. idea, as it has existed in Southern society and politics.] But, leaving out of the estimate the cruel measures sometimes resorted to in executing its plans, there will be found many who advance the opinion that that complete renovation of the social system accomplished through its means was a necessity of the times which would hardly have been effected so quickly and so thoroughly in the use of less radical measures.
And in this connection, it may not be deemed digressive to say, that the many inhuman butcheries with which it was debited by a not too discriminative public, never in reality occurred (in no instance unless through accident or mistake), and were pure figments of the scalawag imagination—an imperent element of Southern politics, whose acts had provoked the reign of terror which it took this dishonest means of deprecating.
But as nothing could be further from our purpose than to become the champion of this secret movement—which might be inferred from a too ready condemnation of its enemies—we hasten to add our conviction that many of its acts were lawless, many of its correctives applied to social maladies improportioned in severity, and its entire administration, social and political, an incontinent abuse of usurped prerogative. We have said that in politics its influence was hurtful to those in whose behalf it was officiously employed, and we wish to verify this statement in a logical manner. Assuming that our position is fully understood by the reader, the information may be volunteered in its support, that the rank and file of the Order comprised the radical element in Southern politics (native), Democrats and Republicans (and not a few of the latter), a force, which it was reasonable to presume, would enterprise radical measures only in support of its aims. The organization, then, standing alone, and segregated from any influences which itself may have set in motion, could not have failed of ungracious treatment from those domestic surroundings which it had ignored, but upon which it was confessedly dependent. The great party from which it had seceded, controlled by a rigid system of morals in politics, viewed from habit all such movements with suspicion; and as there was nothing in either the manners or the policy of this departure calculated to remove the antipathies of the prejudiced, or to win the affections of the disengaged, reflector of opinion, it failed altogether to secure discriminations in its favor, which would have placed it above such considerations. From this standpoint (i. e., its individuality) it conciliated nobody, for even its externals were forbidding; and the ignorant and educated classes alike—though perhaps from diverse considerations—cherished a suppressed sentiment unfavorable to its affectation of the supernatural, and its partiality for the shadowy in nature.
But while it lost popularity where it should have gained it,—through generical belongings which, possibly, could not have been rendered more in harmony with the public fancy,—there was certainly nothing reassuring to its fellow-citizens in the record which it put before the world. While, as we have said, there was nothing monstrous, nor even designedly criminal in its acts, there was so much that offended against propriety, and required explanation withal, that those who had not been estranged before, as well as those who had, became hopelessly so. It had not been in existence a twelvemonth, before its name, in the localities which it frequented most, became a by-word signifying something very forbidding and disagreeable, if not actually criminal. In the dozen States or more whence its force was recruited, it had not half a hundred friends unconnected with its patronage, and these could hardly have been induced to have made a public profession of their preference.
Its influence on Southern politics, then, could not have been favorable; and having said so much as to the positive effect wrought, we shall briefly examine the negative issue which it introduced into the great campaign. And in doing this, we shall not attempt to penetrate its motives, nor inquire how far it was responsible for acts which but reflected an evil tendency. The reader has, doubtless, anticipated us in the statement that it alienated the political mind of the North, reopened the dead issues of secession and war, and licensed a political persecution which, in extent and malignity of design, has not been equalled since the Roman empire dictated government to its conquered dependencies. Reconstruction, having been inaugurated under favorable auspices, was not to be pretermitted, nor even abated, while this sage Ahithophel occupied a voice in Southern counsels (rendering a war of races possible); and who will affect to say that this policy had no basis of sound reason? The society, a mystery to itself, and sorely misinterpreted by the people among whom it was domesticated, became, of course, a monster of blended secretiveness and iniquity to those who had small means of becoming acquainted with even its aims through unprejudiced sources. Added to this, the most unprincipled plagiaries of its actual history—perpetrated by those local enemies who had most to fear from the movement—found their way constantly into the news mediums of the country, awakening, in the North at least, that dangerous sentimentalism which, more than politics and religion combined, influences the mind of the nation.
Atrocities of which the body could not have been guilty, even in thought—horrors from which it would have shrunk with the same symptoms of dismay that clouded the brow of the Northern reader at their bare relation—were rescued from the carpet-bagger dialect, and rendered into the imaginative prose of the news-reporter, with the design of securing enemies, not for the Ku-Klux movement, but the cause of Conservatism in the South. Many of these slanders never reached the individuals or communities who would have been authorized to refute them, and when their disclaimers were uttered they were either unheard or unheeded.
We do not, of course, affect to say how long the evils of reconstruction were prolonged in the South by means of this influence, but there can be no doubt that it excited such a tendency, and for a long time proved the forlorn hope of the enemies of good government in this section. Many of the wise and good men who had joined the movement in its inception soon became aware of their mistake, and abandoned all connection therewith. Others followed at a later date, and about the year 1873 a general disbandment ensued, leaving only guerillas in the field.