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 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 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 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.