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the 24th he sent a message to Congress announcing his approval, though he disapproved of the mode of procedure adopted. The credentials of the gentlemen claiming seats as Representatives from Tennessee were then referred to Committee on Elections. The committee reported favorably the next day, the House adopted its report, and the eight districts, which had been without representation for more than five years on the floor of the American Congress, were again represented there, and Tennessee was restored to her former.relations to the Union. Her Republican members elect had given assurances that the State would give suffrage without distinction of color; assurances that had undoubtedly induced many to vote for her admission. Her legislature promptly redeemed those pledges, and Tennessee thus became the first of the slave States to give suffrage to the negro race.

On the 22d of June, 1868, an act was passed, with the following preamble and resolution, for the admission of Ar

kansas:

"Whereas the people of Arkansas, in pursuance of an act entitled, An act for the more efficient government of the Rebel States,' passed March 2, 1867, and the acts supplementary thereto, have framed and adopted a constitution of State government, which is republican, and the legislature of said State has duly ratified the amendment of the Constitution of the United States proposed by the XXXIXth Congress, and known as Article XIV.; Therefore,

"Be it enacted, etc., that the State of Arkansas is entitled and admitted to representation in Congress, as one of the States of the Union, upon the following fundamental condition."

The "fundamental condition," as finally agreed upon, was, "That there shall never be in said State any denial or abridg ment of the elective franchise, or of any other right, to any person by reason or on account of race or color, except Indians not taxed." The bill was vetoed by the President on the 20th, but passed over the veto on the 22d in the House by the vote of one hundred and eleven to thirty-one, and in the Senate by a vote of thirty to seven.

On the 25th of June a similar act was passed admitting the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, in pursuance of a similar preamble, with the conditions that they should ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, that they should not deprive "any citizen, or class of citizens of the State of the right to vote by the constitution thereof," and that no person prohibited from holding office by said Amendment should be "deemed eligible to any office in either of said States unless relieved from disability as provided in said amendment"; the State of Georgia being also required to declare "null and void" certain provisions of its constitution, and "in addition give the assent of said State to the fundamental condition herein before imposed on the same.' 92 The bill passed the House, May 14,-yeas one hundred and ten, nays thirty-five; in the Senate, June 9,— yeas thirty-one, nays five. It was vetoed by the President on the 25th, and passed, the same day, by both houses, over the presidential veto.

On the 27th of January, 1870, Virginia was admitted into the Union by a vote, in the House, of one hundred and thirtysix to fifty-eight; and in the Senate by a vote of forty-seven to ten. The following were the preamble, oaths, and conditions precedent: "Whereas the people of Virginia have framed and adopted a constitution of State government which is republican; and whereas the legislature of Virginia, elected under said constitution, has ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States; and whereas the performance of these several acts in good faith is a condition precedent to a representation of the State in Congress," said State should be admitted to a representation in Congress; with the additional conditions precedent, however, that the constitution should never be so amended as to deprive any class of citizens of the right "to vote," "to hold office," on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; neither should there be "other qualifications" required for such reason; nor should any be deprived of "school rights or privileges" on such account. On the 3d of February Mississippi was admitted by a bill resembling the former

in every particular, by substantially the same vote. On the 30th of March Texas was readmitted to the Union on a bill very similar, though not identical with the above. Though the votes on the first two had been preceded by a somewhat protracted and earnest discussion, concerning the latter there was less debate, although there was quite a brief and earnest passage between Wood of New York and Butler of Massachusetts, on an amendment of the latter, that Texas should be admitted "to all the rights of other States within the Union without qualifications or fundamental conditions except as herein stated."

By this act of Congress the last of the "wayward sisters" was brought back and restored to the family of States, and the fractured Union was, outwardly at least, repaired. It was ten years, eight months, and twenty days after South Carolina. raised the banner of revolt and led off in "the dance of death." What a decade! How tame and uneventful seems any other since the nation was formed! How much was done; how much was left undone! What marvellous and radical changes had taken place! And yet what changes remain to be effected, more marvellous and radical still, moral and personal, because supplementary, and necessary to show whether what had been accomplished is to be regarded as a blessing

or a curse.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE KU-KLUX KLAN.

Supposed origin in Tennessee.

Incipient movements.

Dangerous tendencies. - Secrecy. Pretended designs. - Testimony of General Forrest. — Report of Congressional Committee. - Testimony of army officers. - Whippings and murders in South Carolina. — Outrages in Alabama and Mississippi. — Attacks on teachers and clergymen. - Extent of the order. Effect on elections. Passage of Enforcement Act. — President's proclamation.

THE Ku-Klux Klan was a secret, mysterious order of extensive ramifications that for two or three years committed highhanded and bloody outrages in various parts of the Southern States, and carried terror and dismay to the hearts of the loyal men and women throughout the late Confederacy. The first serious demonstrations of the order that attracted notice were made in Tennessee in 1866, but by whom the society was organized, and with what original intent, has never been satisfactorily ascertained. That it was in part political from the first there is abundant indication from the character of its proceedings, and from the testimony elicited by the Congressional Committee.

Though several thousand murders were committed by members of the order during its existence, it is difficult to believe that organized plunder and murder constituted a feature of the original intention, as it is not conceivable that so many individuals in any state of society should be willing to be connected with deliberate transactions of so infamous a character. But the whole design having been unlawful, and placed in the hands of irresponsible and reckless men, deficient in moral education and demoralized by the war, there soon grew up naturally a system of plunder and slaughter whose parallel the modern world has not seen in a time of peace. It is also

probable that in course of time bodies of men having no connection with the order adopted the tactics, and assumed their name, to perform their marauding deeds under cover of the patent of the original inventors. This was asserted, but it does not help the case of the Ku-Klux, it being impossible under the secrecy and disguises to tell the genuine from the imitation, the acts of the former being of a kind that the perpetrators dare not avow them; and having taught the way to do bad deeds and how to escape detection, they can hardly shirk the responsibility of whatever came of their evil example.

Several striking facts in connection with the movements of the Ku-Klux were apparent through the whole of its career. It was strangely mysterious; its acts were committed by armed men, by men disguised; its victims were Union men; and its deeds were performed with such entire impunity that detection and conviction amounted to almost an impossibility. As the men connected with the demonstrations went in gangs, and at uncertain times and seasons, resistance was vain, and only by flight could a marked victim escape the intended infliction upon his person and family.

Some distinguished persons at the South and elsewhere, and some editors of influential journals at the North, have endeav ored to make it appear that there never was any organization of this kind, or if one, that it was never formidable or serious, and that the outrages, the murder, arson, and torture, were the same as other and all sections of the country are subject to at times, and had no political signification whatever, and were not the results of any organized system or any prevailing general depravity. This assumption is widely at variance with the facts as given in the evidence before the committee of investigation, and this volume would not suffice to display all the proofs which have come to hand on this subject. These proofs are from various sources, from governors of States, judges, lawyers, clergymen, United States civil officers, army officers, citizens, soldiers, Rebels, Union men, freedmen, and all classes of society, from all the States which suffered from the presence of these pests of society.

It is also to be mentioned that while the murders and other

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