CHAPTER XXVI. KU-KLUX OUTRAGES.-CONTINUED. SOUTH CAROLINA —FRAUD AND VIOLENCE IN ELECTIONS - ELECTION CASES GEORGIA-GENERAL SWAYNE'S REPORT GENERAL GORDON'S VIEWS - NO EXCUSE FOR KU-KLUX ORGANIZATIONS OR RAIDS -ALABAMA ASSASSINATION OF ALEXANDER BOYD — INTIMIDATION OF STUDENTS THE METHODIST CHURCH SOUTH OUTRAGES UPON PREACHERSMISSISSIPPI - HOSTILITY ΤΟ FREE SCHOOLS OUTRAGES ON SCHOOL TEACHERS THE MERIDIAN RIOT WHIPPING OF HUGGINS AND MCBRIDE THE KU-KLUX START IN TENNESSEE - THEIR RAPID SPREAD IN OTHER SOUTHERN STATES BAD GOVERNMENT CAUSES SECRET ASSOCIATIONS - HENCE, THE ILLUMINÉS THE TUGEND-BUND— THE CARBONARI -THE JACOBIN CLUBS - THE NIHILISTS - THE FENIANS - THE LOYAL LEAGUES - AND THE KU-KLUX KLANS-THE AUTHOR'S SPEECH AGAINST THE FORCE BILL. T ESTIMONY that was taken in 1868, in two contested election cases in the United States House of Representatives, exhibits the condition of affairs that existed in the State of South Carolina at that time. The contests in question were in the cases of Hoge and Reed, of the Third district, and of Wallace and Simpson, of the Fourth district. Mr. Hoge and Mr. Wallace were both Republicans. Almost as a matter of course, they obtained their seats. Evidence was presented tending to show that the two Democrats who had obtained certificates, had secured their majorities by violence and fraud. Their opponents were seated, not because they had received a majority of the votes, but on the ground that the two Democrats were ineligible, being banned by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Third district was composed of the counties of Abbeville, Anderson, Edgefield, Newberry, Lexington, Richland, and Orangeburg; and in all of these counties except the last the evidence showed that there had existed the most defiant terrorism and fraud. Several hundred men from Edgefield County had voted in Lexington County, and fifteen hundred or INTIMIDATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 465 more of the Edgefield County men had also voted the Democratic ticket in the adjacent counties. But this violation of law was a venial offense, when compared with the measures resorted to by the lawless Southern men to prevent the negroes from voting. The terrorism existing in Edgefield County was so great that no man who was not in sympathy with the dominant white element could be induced to act as commissioner of election. One commissioner was shot at and left the county, and others refused to serve. The facts in support of the charges of violence are too numerous to be stated circumstantially. The white clubs organized in the counties were secret, oathbound societies. They patrolled the county, generally undisguised. They paid domiciliary visits to the negroes and white Republicans, shooting some, whipping others, and warning all of the consequences of voting the Republican ticket. The avowed purpose of these clubs was to break up the Loyal Leagues. In order to accomplish this object, the patrol was instructed, if necessary, to shoot the leaders and active men of the Leagues. One of the patrol turned state's evidence. He confessed that he was one of three men who had orders to murder a prominent Republican named Randolph. This murder was committed about one o'clock in the day, at the railroad station, on the arrival of the train on which Randolph was a passenger. The tragedy occurred in Edgefield County. William R. Tolbert, the man who had turned state's evidence, stated that he himself and two associates fired on Randolph, who fell dead. These murderers were probably men of the lowest class of whites; but they were not more guilty than their more intelligent abettors. According to the testimony, the members of the club were sworn to obey the orders of their captain. They were instructed to find out the meeting places of the Loyal League, and to fire into them. They were to aim at their leading men. The club had special orders, at the Presidential and congressional election on the 3d of November, 1868, to be at the polls early and not to allow a negro or a Republican to vote. Testimony to the same effect was given by other witnesses. Republicans of both races were intimidated and driven from the polls by the practice of whipping, shooting, killing, and expelling them from their houses. The terrorism was so great that, although Edgefield County contained 4,200 colored voters, only 800 of them voted at that election; while the white vote was between eighteen and nineteen hundred. There was less of violence and bloodshed in Lexington County; but there, also, the Republicans were intimidated. Nine hundred Republican voters, six hundred of them colored, were deterred from attempting to vote, while on the contrary several hundred Democratic citizens of Edgefield County were permitted to vote in Lexington. In Anderson County, about half of the colored voters abstained from voting. This was in consequence of threats of expulsion from their homes. Two young men were whipped for being Republicans. Mr. Wallace, the Republican candidate for Congress in the Fourth district, testified at length as to the condition of terrorism in which the Republicans lived in his district. This district was, at that time, composed of the counties of Fairfield, Chester, York, Spartanburg, Union, Laurens, Oconee, Pickens, and Greenville. At the election in Laurens County, the Democrats formed lines around the polls. They thus kept off many of the negroes who would have voted; while some Republican negroes voted the Democratic ticket, from fear of punishment or of expulsion from their homes. was testified that in Pickens County armed bands rode about through the country every night for over a week previous to the election. They thus intimidated the colored people and prevented them, as well as many white people, from voting. Outside the polls, parties opened the tickets and took down the names of all persons who voted the Republican ticket; while those who voted the Democratic ticket were given certificates by which they could obtain employment. In fact, if this evidence be credible, even in the least degree, the election was carried by fraud and intimidation. The enforcement of the Reconstruction acts was the chief provocation to the outrages perpetrated by the white people upon the blacks. The enfranchisement of the negroes was resented by those who for generations had been accustomed to treat them as chattels. In reference to South Carolina, the report of the joint select committee of the two houses of Congress of 1872 contains such a mass of revolting details that one cannot decide where to begin their citation or where to stop. Murders, or attempts to murder, are numerous. Whippings are without number. Probably the most cruel and cowardly of these last was the whipping of Elias Hill. He was a colored man who had, from infancy, been dwarfed in legs and arms. He was unable to use either. But he possessed an intelligent mind; had learned to read; and had acquired an unusual amount of knowledge for one in his circumstances. He was a Baptist preacher. He was highly respected for his upright character. He was eminently religious, and was greatly revered by the people of his own race. It was on this ground that he was visited by the Ku-Klux, brutally beaten, and dragged from his house into the yard, where he was left in the cold at night, unable to walk or crawl. After the fiends had left, his sister brought him into the house. Although this man was a Republican, his testimony gave evidence of the mildness and Christian forbearance of his character, as well as his freedom from ill-will toward the white race. In answer to a question as to his feeling toward the whites, he replied that he had good-will, love, and affection toward them; but that he feared them. He said that he had never made the wrongs and cruelties inflicted by white people on his race the subject of his sermons; but that he preached the gospel only — repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. BITTER FEELING IN GEORGIA. 467 It seems, according to the report of the committee (from which the statements of this chapter are mainly taken), that the operations of the Ku-Klux organization throughout the State of South Carolina since 1868, had been confined chiefly to the nine counties already mentioned. There were only a few sporadic cases in other counties. These were immediately after the election in October, 1870. With the Hamburgh massacre of the 8th of July, 1867, this bloody period of South Carolina history was brought to a close. The writer has fully stated from his seat in Congress, his opinion of the facts in that matter. The facts exonerate Mr. Butler, one of the present Senators of South Carolina, who was harshly criticised at the North. That gentleman, in all that he did, endeavored to allay and prevent, rather than foment the terrible excitement. The condition of affairs in the State of Georgia, immediately after the close of the war, was represented in an official report made by Gen. Wager Swayne, of the Freedmen's Bureau. It was dated Dec. 16, 1865. He stated that the withdrawal of the Federal troops had been followed by outrages on the freed people; that their school-houses had been burned, their teachers driven off or threatened with death, and the freed people compelled by fraud, and even by violence, to enter into unjust contracts. The responsible and educated classes were represented by General Swayne as being ashamed of these outrages and as claiming that they should not be judged by the people who were mean and cruel enough to practice such wrongs. He remarked, however, that the convictions of these higher classes never took form in action; and but seldom in manly open protest; and that it required the most careful nursing and culture to keep alive even a show of justice toward the freed people. He stated that nearly all the females and young men, and all the black-legs and rowdies, were open and defiant in their expressions of hate toward the "Yankees" and negroes, and that the only public opinion which made itself felt was as bitter and as malignant as ever. - Such was the state of feeling in Georgia at the close of the war, as it appeared to a United States army officer. It was a natural feeling of chagrin and mortification at defeat. It was mingled with detestation of the conqueror and contempt for the rights of the negro. Suffrage had not then been given to the negroes, but President Johnson had stripped many of the leading men in the Southern States in fact all those who had theretofore participated in the government-of the right to vote and hold office. It would have been strange, therefore, if such bitterness of feeling had not existed for a time. But it will be seen that, a few years later, General Gordon, an eminent and eloquent Georgian, who had succeeded Stonewall Jackson in the command of his corps, saw things in a very different light. His statement before the joint select committee is summed up approvingly in the report of the committee. It is to this effect: that the magnanimity and deference shown by General Grant and his officers toward the army of the South, at the time of and after the surrender, had led them to hope that they would be permitted to go home, resume their places and rights as citizens, organize their state governments, and resume their relations to the general government, just as if there had been no rebellion; but that, after President Lincoln's death, the people became apprehensive that some hanging and general confiscation would follow. When relieved of those apprehensions, and when the terms of reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment were proposed by Congress, they began to complain of want of good faith toward them. They became sullen and defiant. They regarded the government as having outraged them and deprived them of their rights. General Gordon spoke in high praise of the conduct of the negroes during the war. He referred to a speech made by himself at Montgomery, Alabama, while the contest was still raging. In that speech he praised the fidelity of the negroes. He urged the white people to provide for the education of the colored people. His remarks had been applauded, and many of the negroes who were present had come to him afterwards and thanked him. But he said that, when the "carpet-baggers" organized the Loyal Leagues in 1865 and 1866, the white people became alarmed. They, too, organized a secret order called "The Brotherhood." The whole object of this organization, he said, was to repel attacks of the Leagues. It extended throughout the state, and had no political end in view. This Brotherhood, however, dissolved, he said, as soon as the courts were re-established. The people believed that the courts, although in the hands of Republicans, would execute the laws fairly. A secret organization that is formed for the purpose of regulating affairs and of righting private wrongs will infallibly drift into politics. The Loyal Leagues were organized for the purpose of keeping up, at fever heat, the sentiment of loyalty to the Republican party. They became political organizations from the start. They impressed the negroes with the belief that the adherents of the Democratic party were, at best, but lukewarm, halfhearted friends of the Union. It is remarkable that, in Georgia as well as in North and South Carolina, and in other states where the Ku-Klux organization existed, its operations were carried on in counties where the whites preponderated. It is also worthy of note that the numbers of the Ku-Klux Klan who sallied out to make raids upon negro cabins or upon the teachers of negro schools, were out of all proportion to the probable resistance to be encountered. These valiant defenders of society who prowled over the country under the cover of night and of hideous disguises, rarely encountered a foe, unless they had a force of ten or twenty to one; and there were cases in which a |