If the shot upon Fort Sumter was treason, what shall we call the bloody conflict which the white men of the South have waged against the Constitutional amendments from 1866 to the murder of innocent citizens at Danville, Virginia, in 1883—even unto the present time? If the shot upon Fort Sumter drew down upon the South the indignation and the vengeance of the Federal government, putting father against son, and brother against brother, what shall we say the Federal Government should have done to put a period to the usurpation and the murders of these leagues of horror?
The entire adult male population of the South, though no longer in armed "Rebellion," appeared to be in league against the government of the United States. The arm of State authority was paralyzed, the operation of courts of justice was suspended, lawlessness and individual license walked abroad, and anarchy, pure and simple, prevailed. Under the name of the "Ku Klux Klan," the South was bound by the following oath, ironclad, paradoxical and enigmatical as it is:
I, [name] before the great immaculate Judge of heaven and earth, and upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, do, of my own free will and accord, subscribe to the following sacred, binding obligation:
I. I am on the side of justice and humanity and constitutional liberty, as bequeathed to us by our forefathers in its original purity.
II. I reject and oppose the principles of the radical party.
III. I pledge aid to a brother of the Ku-Klux Klan in sickness, distress, or pecuniary embarrassments. Females, friends, widows, and their households shall be the special object of my care and protection.
IV. Should I ever divulge, or cause to be divulged, any of the secrets of this order, or any of the foregoing obligations, I must meet with the fearful punishment of death and traitor's doom, which is death, death, death, at the hands of the brethren.
Murderers, incendiaries, midnight raiders on the "side of justice, humanity and Constitutional liberty"! Let us see what kind of "justice, humanity and Constitutional liberty" is meant. In Volume I, page 21, I find the following:
Taking these statements from official sources, showing the prevalence of this organization in every one of the late insurrectionary States and in Kentucky, it is difficult now, with the light that has recently been thrown upon its history, to realize that even its existence has been for so long a mooted question in the public mind. Especially is this remarkable in view of the effects that are disclosed by some of this documentary evidence to have been produced by it. That it was used as a means of intimidating and murdering negro voters during the presidential election of 1868, the testimony in the Louisiana and other contested-election cases already referred to clearly establishes.
Taking the results in Louisiana alone as an instance, the purpose of the organization at that time, whatever it may have been at its origin, could hardly be doubted.
A member of the committee which took that testimony thus sums it up:
The testimony shows that over 2,000 persons were killed, wounded, and otherwise injured in that State within a few weeks prior to the presidential election; that half the State was overrun by violence; midnight raids, secret murders, and open riot kept the people in constant terror until the Republicans surrendered all claims, and then the election was carried by the Democracy. The parish of Orleans contained 29,910 voters, 15,020 black. In the spring of 1868 that parish gave 13,973 republican votes. In the fall of 1868 it gave Grant 1,178, a falling off of 12,795 votes. Riots prevailed for weeks, sweeping the city of New Orleans, and filling it with scenes of blood, and Ku-Klux notices were scattered through the city warning the colored men not to vote. In Caddo there were 2,987 Republicans. In the spring of 1868 they carried the parish. In the fall they gave Grant one vote. Here also there were bloody riots.
But the most remarkable case is that of St. Landry, a planting parish on the River Teche. Here the Republicans had a registered majority of 1,071 votes. In the spring of 1868 they carried the parish by 678. In the fall they gave Grant no vote, not one; while the democrats cast 4,787, the full vote of the parish, for Seymour and Blair.
Here occurred one of the bloodiest riots on record, in which the Ku-Klux killed and wounded over two hundred Republicans, hunting and chasing them for two days and nights through fields and swamps. Thirteen captives were taken from the jail and shot. A pile of twenty-five dead bodies was found half buried in the woods. Having conquered the Republicans, killed and driven off the white leaders, the Ku-Klux captured the masses, marked them with badges of red flannel, enrolled them in clubs, led them to the polls, made them vote the Democratic ticket, and then gave them certificates of the fact.
It is not my purpose to weary the reader with tedious citations from the cumbersome reports of the "Ku Klux conspiracy." Those reports are accessible to the reading public. They tell the bloody story of the terrible miscarriage of the "Reconstruction policy;" they show how cruel men can be under conditions favorable to unbridled license, undeterred by the strong arm of constituted authority; they show how helpless the freed people were; how ignorant, how easily led by unscrupulous adventurers pretending to be friends and how easily murdered and overawed by veterans inured to the dangers and the toils of war; and, lastly, they show how powerless was the national government to protect its citizens' rights, specifically defined by the Federal constitution. Was, do I say? It is as powerless to day!
In this brief review, then, of the history and present political condition of the American Negro I cannot omit, though I shall not detail, the horrors of the Ku Klux period. They are a link in the chain: and though today's links are different in form and guise, the chain is the same. Let the reader, then, be a little patient at being reminded of things which he has perhaps forgotten.