The Nation's Peril. Anonymous
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.
That men holding high official positions, and moving in the most respectable circles, organized these outrages, selected the victims and accompanied the rabble in the execution of their designs, is indisputable. Inoffensive women seeing their husbands, fathers, and brothers torn from their sides and scourged in their presence, became infuriated at the indecent spectacle, and in their agonized frenzy, rushed upon the assailants and wrenched off the masks behind which they skulked, only to behold the faces of men who, up to that hour, they had deemed the ones to whom, from their superior intelligence, they should have looked for counsel.
Traveling from place to place and directing the general movement, were men who had held positions as generals in the armies of the rebellion. Disappointed political tricksters aiming to elevate to power a party whom they claimed had been in sympathy with the rebel cause North and South; and determined to do this though the land of their birth should go to ruin. Anarchy and confusion usurp the places of law and order, and the blood of the outraged ones reach up to heaven in cries for vengence.
These men overlooked the fact that they were setting in motion a power that was destined to pass from their control, and make them as a people of whom it was written: “I will even give them unto the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life; and their dead bodies shall be as meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth.” They desired to heed no note of warning regarding the future so that the ends of the present were accomplished; and under their guidance, lust and rapine and murder stalked abroad, and the land seemed to be wholly given up to the machinations of the evil one and the unbridled license of his chosen servants.
Nowhere upon the dial plate of the nineteenth century did the index finger of the hand of God point with such unerring and terrible certainty. It seemed as if the Lord had spoken once more as he spake in the days of the Prophet Isaiah:
“What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to. I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the walls thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns * * * for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.”
Good men bowed their heads in anguish. They had lifted their eyes to the far North, from whence should come their help, and they had looked in vain. The body corporate was too fatally diseased to cure itself Rottenness and corruption hung upon its borders, and were slowly sapping the foundations of its life. Its energies were prostrated, its internal recuperative power destroyed. Help must come from without; and the earnest prayers of the devoted and doomed went up to the throne of God in heartfelt supplication, that wisdom might dwell in the hearts of the counsellors to whom the destinies of the nation had been confided; but it seemed as if the heavens were as adamant that could not be pierced, and that no answer would be vouchsafed to the sincere appeal.”
Such was the situation at the close of President Johnson’s term of office, and the elevation of General Grant to the presidential chair. It remained to be seen whether the incoming administration would turn the deaf ear to the suffering and disorganized South as its predecessor had done, or whether, under the guidance of its new Executive head, order should be brought out of chaos, the crooked paths made straight, and the prophecy fulfilled: “Behold, I will redeem them with an outstretched arm.”
The recitals that follow give answer to this query more conclusively than the most elaborate of arguments. They show, from statistics gathered under the most favorable circumstances by the writer in person, the existence of a numerous and formidable organization of armed men, working in secret, disguising themselves beyond all hope of recognition, committing depredations upon persons and property, frequently resulting in the total destruction of both, and instituting the most bitter and inhuman persecutions, for opinion’s sake, that ever disgraced the history of a nation.
The facts are beyond all hope of successful denial. They are born out by the records of the local and federal courts, by the testimony of the surviving sufferers and by the voluntary confession of recanting members of the organization.
A full expose of the order, its origin and secrets, its designs and purposes, its operations and results, are related with an unswerving fidelity to the truth, and with all charity to the people with whom it had its rise, and among whom, by the grace of God, and under the firm but humane course pursued by the present administration in the enforcement of the law, and the establishment of the right, it must have its fall. The information came to the knowledge of the writer through those who had been active members of the order, and who had abandoned it the moment the strong arm of the Government had been felt in the vigorous enforcement of the laws, through its secret agents, thus rendering it safe for them to do so.
The revelations that follow, speak in tones that must reverberate throughout the length and breadth of the continent, and are submitted as terrible evidences of the fearful condition to which communities may be reduced, when, ignoring the cardinal principles of right and justice, they abandon themselves to the control of unscrupulous men, whose overweening ambition destroy every other sentiment, and who esteem no measures too vile or inhuman that will lead to the accomplishment of their own base ends.
ORDERS
OF THE
KU KLUX KLANS.
The Constitutional Union Guards.—Knights of the White Camelia.—Order of Invisible Empire.—The White Brotherhood.—Union and Young Men’s Democracy.
ORIGIN, ORGANIZATION, INITIATION, OATHS, OBJECTS AND OPERATIONS.
| He discovereth deep things out of darkness; And bringeth out to light the shadow of death. Job. XII., 22. |
In the early part of 1866, or nearly a year after the close of the war of the rebellion, there was organized in the Southern States, a secret order, known as the “Constitutional Union Guards,” having a constitution, by-laws, oaths of allegiance, modes of recognition and approach, and a ritual, all of which were legendary and unwritten. Its places of meetings were styled Camps. Its officers were: a “Commander,” “South Commander,” “Grand Commander,” “Chief of Dominion,” and “Grand Cyclops,” or supreme head of the order.
The Commander is the chief officer of a local Camp. He issues the call for, and presides over, all its meetings. Initiates members; administers the oath; invests them with the signs, grips, and passwords necessary in making themselves known as members of the Order; and imparts to