After the Reconstruction Acts were passed and put into operation, and especially after the Southern communities were reorganized as "States"
Methods of
the Ku-Klux.
The appearance of both the Loyal Leagues and the Ku-Klux Klans in the manner in which they appeared, and at the time when they appeared,
The naturalness of
these organizations.
And, again, when by the Reconstruction Acts and the restoration of martial law in the South under them, Congress turned the tables upon the Southern white people, and placed the ignorant barbarians in political control of them, and made every open attempt to resist this control a penal offence, it was also rather natural, though not praiseworthy, that men should have bound themselves together by secret oaths to do anything and everything in their power to defeat this blunder-crime against civilization. Whether natural or not, it always happens when such attempts are made, and it is always to be expected.
But to return to the order of the narrative. The formation of the Union Leagues in 1867 and 1868 enabled the negroes to vote in these
The opportunity for
political adventurers.
The landing places in this story may be placed at the years 1872, 1874, and 1876. The year 1872 is the date of the national revolt against the
Periods in
the history of
negro rule.