of the Cumberland, dated October 1, 1868, followed a few days later by a similar report from Major-General Reynolds, commanding the Fifth military district at Austin, Tex., and by Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, at the head of the Freedmen's Bureau. General Thomas says:

With the close of the last and beginning of the new year the State of Tennessee was disturbed by the strange operations of a mysterious organization known as the Ku-Klux-Klan, which first made its appearance in Giles County. Within a few weeks it had spread over a great part of the State, and created no little alarm. Accounts of it from many sources were received at these headquarters. The newspapers recognized its existence by publishing articles on the subject, either denunciatory or with an attempt to break its proceedings as harinless jokes, according to the political opinions of their editors. The assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands for Tennessee in his reports, copies of which were furnished me, narrated many of the proceedings of the organization, whose acts were shown to be of a lawless and diabolical nature. Organized companies of men, mounted and armed, horses and riders being disguised, patrolled the country, making demonstrations calculated to frighten quiet citizens, and in many instances abused and outraged them, especially that class of colored people who by their energy, industry, and good conduct are most prominent.

I did not think it necessary to take any action on the information furnished until the month of March, when a member of the legislature of Tennessee sent me a written statement of the doings of this organization, saying it carried terror and dismay throughout the country; that the civil authorities were powerless and appeared terror struck; that his own life was threatened, and asked if something could not be done by the General Government to protect the community; if not, there was danger of a bloody collision.

66

The cases referred to by General Thomas had been duly forwarded by him to the General in chief for instructions, with the remark that as Tennessee is a fully constituted State I consider that the State authorities should deal with and suppress this organization of lawless, desperate men, and I have not up to the present time considered myself authorized to take active measures against them." These papers were laid before the President, who returned them with the following decision:

The Constitution provides that the United States shall protect each State “on application of the legislature or the executive (when the legislature can not be convened) against domestic violence. As the legislature of Tennessee is now in session, and as no application for Federal aid has been received from that body, or any information communicated by the governor of that State, it is not at this time deemed within the province of the Executive to give any instructions upon the subject to which these papers refer.

The publication of this decision seems to have given encouragement to these midnight prowlers, for their operations which were heretofore limited to a few counties in middle Tennessee were now extended into eastern Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, and almost daily reports were received of their outrages. On the 16th of April Governor Brownlow called for troops to be sent to Maury County, and again in June the disturbances had reached such a degree of intolerance that he asked for troops to be sent to eight separate points. It was declared

on the authority of General Forrest that the Ku-Klux-Klan at this time numbered 40,000 members in Tennessee alone. As every available soldier was already in pursuit of these ruffians it was found impossible to fill the governor's requisition. The latter then called a special session of the legislature and laid the matter before them. The legislature passed resolutions calling upon the Federal Government for troops to preserve order in the State and appointed a committee to visit Washington and lay the condition of affairs in Tennessee before the President. Assurances were given this committee that the power of the United States would be employed to protect the State against lawless violence. On the 16th of September Governor Brownlow issued a proclamation against the Ku-Klux-Klan, in which he announced his purpose "to put down armed marauders" whatever the consequences, and calling upon all "good, loyal, and patriotic people, white and colored, of every county in the State to proceed without delay and raise companies of loyal and able-bodied men" and report to him at Nashville. A second proclamation was issued on the 20th of January, 1869, as follows:

Whereas, there exists in middle and west Tennessee lawless bands who set at defiance civil law, and in certain localities render it impossible for civil officers to enforce the laws of the State; and whereas, those masked villians, called Ku-Klux, are taking prisoners from jails and hanging them without trial, and are abducting passengers from railroad trains and notifying conductors of Northern birth to leave the State, thus having driven four conductors from one road, the Decatur and Alabama road; and whereas, certain ambitious men have made incendiary speeches, advising the overthrow of the State government, thereby encouraging these bands; and whereas, certain rebel newspapers have encouraged these men by denying the existence of the Ku-Klux by ridiculing their acts, and failing to condemn them; and whereas, the legislature has amended the militia law and given me authority to meet such outrages: Now, therefore, I, William G. Brownlow, governor of Tennessee, do call upon all good and loyal citizens to enter the ranks of the State guards, be mustered into service, and aid in suppressing lawlessness. Those enrolling in east Tennessee will be transported to Nashville and armed and placed under the command of Gen. James A. Cooper.

Another proclamation will be duly issued designating the counties in which I shall declare martial law, the effect of which will be to set aside civil law and turn over offenders to the military to be tried and punished summarily. These outrages have been long borne, but the executive is not to be cajoled or trifled with. The citizens are warned against harboring any Ku-Klux. The governor will make the guards numerous and effective enough to make middle and west Tennessee as orderly and quiet as east Tennessee is to-day.

In testimony whereof, I have signed the foregoing and affix the great seal this the 20th day of January, 1869.

WILLIAM G. BROWNLOW.

Governor Brownlow followed this up by calling into the field the entire State militia, which he increased by active recruiting until it had reached a strength of 1,600 men. On the 20th of February he declared martial law in nine counties, and by pressing this policy with determi

nation and imposing the expense on the counties, succeeded in restoring order. The United States troops were not further called upon in Tennessee and the Ku-Klux operations seem to have ceased as suddenly and mysteriously as they were commenced. General Forrest claims to have disbanded the organization in 1868, but his control seems to have been confined to Tennessee and perhaps Kentucky.

From Tennessee, if this be regarded as the initial point, of which there is reasonable doubt, the organization seems to have passed into Georgia. Gen. John B. Gordon, who admitted that he refused to become its head, in his testimony before the committee (p. 308) remarked:

We were afraid to have a public organization, because we supposed it would be construed at once by the authorities at Washington as an organization antagonistic to the Government of the United States. It was therefore necessary, in order to protect our families from outrage and preserve our own lives, to have something that we could regard as a brotherhood—a combination of the best men of the countryto act purely in self-defense, to repel the attack in case we should be attacked by these people. That was the whole object of this organization. I never heard of any disguises connected with it; we had none, very certainly. This organization I think extended nearly all over the State. It was, as I say, an organization purely for self-defense. It had no more politics in it than the organization of the Masons. I never heard the idea of politics suggested in connection with it.

There was little or no difference in the operations of these marauders in Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama from the methods that were followed in Tennessee. Testimony taken by the committee covered well-defined outrages in 24 counties of Georgia, 14 counties in North Carolina, 24 counties in Alabama, 18 counties in Mississippi. In 6 specified counties of Alabama the total number of proven cases of individual violence was 371, of which 33 were murders; in 4 counties. of Mississippi 31 murders were committed in 1868-69.

There is abundant evidence on file in the War Department to establish these facts and thousands of similar ones. The number of proven outrages, murders, and mutilations committed by these secret organizations is appalling.

In South Carolina the operations of the Ku-Klux, which had ceased after the Presidential election of 1869, were renewed in 1870. Before the election of that year Governor Scott had organized and armed a militia composed entirely of colored men, upon the plea that it was necessary that they should protect themselves against violence. This action was most offensive to the whites, and was resented by them at every opportunity. Some of the arms belonging to this colored. militia were stored at the town of Laurens, where repeated encounters

Riot at Laurens, S. C., October 20,

between individual blacks and whites had developed a state of feverish excitement. On the 20th of October, 1870, an altercation between two men of opposite opinions occurred in the public square at Laurens; several colored men

1870.

rushed to the armory, evidently to procure arms; they were followed by a party of whites, armed with pistols; firing commenced on both sides, and a riot ensued. This was about noon. Within an hour or two armed white men commenced to pour into Laurens from the surrounding country, and by midnight fully 2,500 strangers were in town. The riot commenced in Laurens, extended into the county within a radius of many miles, and continued until the night of the 21st, by which time 13 men had been killed and several hundred wounded. There is nothing to connect this affair with the Ku-Klux organizations, but the testimony showed that almost immediately after the Laurens riot the Ku-Klux appeared in several places in the State, and that for the following twelve months their midnight operations were quite unrestrained. It was shown that in Spartanburg County alone 227 persons were whipped, maimed, killed, or otherwise maltreated; that hundreds of persons slept in the woods all winter under fear of these raiders."

Riot at

Unionville, S. C.,

January 12,
1871.

On the 31st of December, 1870, a company of negro militia left Unionville, Union County, ostensibly for drill; the real purpose of their march is not clear. On their way they met a white wagoner who had been a Confederate soldier, whom they abused, and, on his resisting, chased and killed him. The Congressional committee characterized the murder as cruel and unprovoked. This excited intense feeling in Unionville, and the citizens determined to disarm the militia company. On the 1st of January, 1871, several of the negroes who participated in the shooting were arrested and lodged in the jail. Three days later a party of undisguised Ku-Klux rode into town, surrounded the jail, took out five prisoners, shot two of them; the others escaped. They were recaptured, and, with seven or eight others, again lodged in the jail, where they remained until the 12th, when another body of armed and disguised Ku-Klux, variously estimated at from 400 to 800, came into Unionville, took possession of the jail, took out eight of the prisoners and hung them. In Chester, Fairfield, and York counties the same state of affairs existed as in Union and Spartanburg. Murders, whip(pings, and intimidations followed each other until, in response to a call from the governor, United States troops were sent to Yorkville. On the night preceding their arrival the Ku-Klux raided the county treasury, and, being advised of the coming of the troops, tore up the railway track to obstruct their passage. The commanding officer of these troops reported a few days later:

From the best information I can get, I estimate the number of cases of whipping, beating, and personal violence of various grades, in this county, since the 1st of last November, at between 300 and 400, excluding numerous minor cases of threats,

a Vol. 2, pp. 1305-1319; Senate Report No. 41, Forty-second Congress, second session.

intimidation, abuse, and small personal violence, as knocking down with a pistol or gun, etc. The more serious outrages, exclusive of murders and whippings, noted hereafter.

The result of these persistent outrages, and the repeated calls of the civil authorities for aid, was the act of Congress approved April 20, 1871 (17 Stat. L., 13), entitled "An act to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes," which, after prescribing the penalty for conspiring by force to put down the Government, or to hinder the execution of any law, or for going in disguise upon the public highway, etc., goes on to say:

SEC. 3. That in all cases where insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combinations, or conspiracies in any State shall so obstruct or hinder the execution of the laws thereof, and of the United States, as to deprive any portion or class of the people of such State of any of the rights, privileges, or immunities, or protection, named in the Constitution and secured by this act, and the constituted authorities of such State shall either be unable to protect, or shall, from any cause, fail in or refuse protection of the people in such rights, such facts shall be deemed a denial by such State of the equal protection of the laws to which they are entitled under the Constitution of the United States; and in all such cases, or whenever any such insurrection, violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy shall oppose or obstruct the laws of the United States, or the due execution thereof, or impede or obstruct the due course of justice under the same, it shall be lawful for the President, and it shall be his duty to take such measures, by the employment of the militia or the land and naval forces of the United States, or of either, or by other means, as he may deem necessary for the suppression of such insurrection, domestic violence, or combinations; and any person who shall be arrested under the provisions of this and the preceding section shall be delivered to the marshal of the proper district, to be dealt with according to law.

SEC. 4. That whenever in any State or part of a State the unlawful combinations named in the preceding section of this act shall be organized and armed, and so numerous and powerful as to be able, by violence, to either overthrow or set at defiance the constituted authorities of such State, and of the United States within such State, or when the constituted authorities are in complicity with, or shall connive at, the unlawful purposes of such powerful and armed combinations; and whenever, by reason of either or all of the causes aforesaid, the conviction of such offenders and the preservation of the public safety shall become in such district impracticable, in every such case such combinations shall be deemed a rebellion against the Government of the United States, and during the continuance of such rebellion, and within the limits of the district which shall be so under the sway thereof, such limits to be prescribed by proclamation, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, when in his judgment the public safety shall require it, to suspend the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, to the end that such rebellion may be overthrown: Provided, That all the provisions of the second section of an act entitled "An act relating to habeas corpus, and regulating judicial proceedings in certain cases," approved March third, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, which relate to the discharge of prisoners other than prisoners of war, and to the penalty for refusing to obey the order of the court, shall be in full force so far as the same are applicable to the provisions of this section: Provided further, That the President shall first have made proclamation, as now provided by law, commanding such insurgents to disperse: And provided also, That the provisions of this section shall not be in force after the end of the next regular session of Congress.