THE ORIGINAL KU KLUX KLAN
The destiny of the United States, like the destiny of the individual, lies
not in dwelling upon the unpleasant things of the past but in a sane and
correct solution of the problems of the present and of the future. We are
all Americans; we live amid conditions that demand national unity and
national sanity; and our principal thought should be the elimination of
sectional discord and internal dissension. Experience has shown me that
there is but little basic difference between average Americans, no matter
in what part of the country they may have been born and reared. Aside from
local customs, variations of accent, and minor provincialisms, the man
from Tennessee is no different from the man from Massachusetts, and the
man from New Jersey is a brother "under his skin" to the "native son" of
the Golden West. To remove the causes of friction, to eliminate sectional
and class hatred, and to inculcate the principles of unified Americanism
among people of diversified interests are the real ideals of this
Republic.
Believing, therefore, that constant dwelling upon the evil of the past is
unhealthful, both to the individual and to the nation, it is neither my
intention nor purpose, in discussing the historical side of the original
Ku Klux Klan to give vent to the passions and prejudices of the South of
the days immediately following the Civil War. In dealing with it, I am
merely narrating facts as set forth by men recognized as authorities of
American history, and these facts can, if need be, be verified by the
reader.
It is a part of the tragedy of war that its termination is followed by a
period of painful reconstruction. Every war ever fought in the world's
history has had its inevitable aftermath of readjustment--the return from
the abnormal to the normal. In some instances this has been so
imperceptible as to entail but little hardship upon the people who have
suffered the terrible effects of armed conflict; in others, the harshness
of the conqueror to the conquered and the brutality of the victor toward
the vanquished have left traces of hatred and lust for vengeance that have
survived for generations.
In the study of the history of the Anglo-Saxon race, there are two
reconstruction periods that stand out in marked contrast. One was the
reconstruction of the Southern States following the Civil War, and the
other was the reconstruction of South Africa by the British government
immediately after the Boer War. The former was handled in a stupid,
ignorant, and insane manner, and based upon the lust of spoils and upon
the most wretched of partisan politics. The latter was disposed of in a
wise, sane, and statesmanly fashion, with impartial consideration for the
welfare of the British Empire and the peace and good will of the Boers.
The reconstruction of the Southern States following the Civil War was
utterly stupid, and Americans of our generation--regardless of Northern or
Southern birth--so consider it, and know that the manner in which the
situation was handed was a political mistake.
The activities of the "carpetbaggers" and their negro allies after the
Civil War were not confined merely to the looting of the public
treasuries. Vicious white men organized the negroes into societies and
stirred up their hatred against the white people, with the result that
unspeakable crimes were committed in all parts of the South. Perhaps the
most notorious of these organizations was that known as the "Loyal
League," which operated in all parts of the South, and which was composed
of negroes and low white men.
I quote from Mr. Wilson's work, the following clear and well-worded
summary:
"The price of the policy to which it gave the final touch of
permanence was the temporary disintegration of Southern society and
the utter, apparently the irretrievable alienation of the South from
the political party whose mastery it had been Mr. Stevens' chief aim
to perpetuate. The white men of the South were aroused by the mere
instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or
foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes
of ignorant negroes and conducted in the interest of adventurers:
governments whose incredible debts were incurred that thieves might
be enriched, whose increasing loans and taxes went to no public use
but into the pockets of party managers and corrupt contractors. There
was no place of open action or of constitutional agitation, under the
terms of reconstruction, for the men who were the real leaders of the
Southern communities. The restrictions shut white men of the older
order out from the suffrage even. They could act only by private
combination, by private means, as a force outside the government,
hostile to it, prescribed by it, of whom opposition and bitter
resistance was expected, and expected with defiance.... But there
were men to whom counsels of prudence seemed as ineffectual as they
were unpalatable, men who could not sit still and suffer what was now
put upon them.... They took the law into their own hands and began to
attempt by intimidation what they were not allowed to attempt by the
ballot or by any course of public action."
The agency by which the South was saved from the devilish scheme of
Thaddeus Stevens to Africanize it and convert it into a mongrel, half-bred
section was the original Ku Klux Klan! Brought into being by chance, and
used as an agency to meet the exigency of the hour, it served its purpose
as many similar systems have served theirs, including the Western
vigilantes, whose work has been commended by Theodore Roosevelt on the
ground of public necessity. Then having restored the South to the control
of its better element, it passed away, to occupy a cherished place in the
history of the Southern States, from which it can never be resurrected.
The reign of Ku Kluxism existed in the Southern States from the year 1866
until President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew the Federal troops from the
South, during which period a number of its phases present themselves for
study and investigation. In some of these, if one accepts the opinions of
radical members of Congress from the Northern States, the whole system was
nothing but evil; while if the extremely radical Southern viewpoint is
accepted, the Ku Klux movement was as spotless as a lily and was
responsible for no acts of lawlessness whatever. Somewhere between the
extreme Northern condemnation and the extreme Southern justification lies
the truth. In any case the Ku Klux movement was the exercise of
extra-legal force for the purpose of meeting a revolutionary condition of
society in a revolutionary manner. In the sense that it had no standing in
law and took upon itself to enforce what its leaders saw fit to declare
was the law, it was an outlaw organization. Taken by itself, in the light
of our present system of government and law enforcement, it has nothing on
which to stand; but, studied in the light of the reconstruction period, it
is shown to have been the last desperate resort of the Anglo-Saxon to
resist and overthrow the attempt to Africanize his country.
The movement was a revolution to meet a situation unparalled in this
country's history, and the history of revolutions has never at any time
manifested the character of pink teas or church socials. Personally I
prefer to adopt the point of view that in a chaotic and despotic condition
of society like the one forced upon the Southern people, the end justified
the means, and would place the entire responsibility of what happened in
the South upon the shoulders of Thaddeus Stevens and other radical leaders
of Congress.
A careful investigation of the history of the original movement shows that
it was divided into three separate and distinct periods. It was first
organized as a secret society for the amusement of its members, without
any serious attempt to act as a "regulator" of social and political
affairs; it was then transformed into a great political-military movement,
enforced law and order, drove the negro and the carpetbagger out of
politics, and was then ordered disbanded; and lastly it attempted in
unorganized fashion, without the authority of its former leaders, to rule
many communities, and an enormous number of acts of violence were
committed either by it or in its name.
There were several different organizations which sprang into existence in
the South during the reconstruction periods, each one operating along the
same general lines but bearing different names. There were the Ku Klux
Klan, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces, the Constitutional Union
Guards, and the Knights of the White Camelia, which was larger than any
of them. In the latter days of the reconstruction, when acts of
lawlessness in the South were so bad that an investigation was held by
Congress, the general name of Ku Klux was applied to all extra-legal
Southern movements. As this narrative deals only with the Ku Klux Klan, a
discussion of the other movements is unnecessary.
The Ku Klux Klan was organized in Pulaski, Tenn., in May, 1866. Several
young men who had served in the Confederate Army, having returned to their
homes, found themselves suffering from the inactivity and reaction that
followed army life. There was nothing to do in which to relieve it. There
was but little work to do, and but few had capital to engage in new
mercantile or professional pursuits. The amusements and diversions of
normal society were lacking, and to meet this situation, it was decided to
form a secret society merely for the purpose of burlesque and fun-making.
After the society was organized, and a name was sought, one of the members
suggested the word "_kukloi_" from the Greek word "_Kuklos_" meaning
circle. Another member then suggested: "Call it 'Ku Klux,'" and this
suggestion was at once adopted, with the addition of the word Klan.
The new society was a success from the start. The "joiner" of 1866 was no
different from the "joiner" of 1921. The boys made the organization one of
deep mystery; they adopted grotesque and hideous costumes which they wore
to and from their places of initiation; they gave out hints of the wonders
of the new society, which played on the curiosity of the public; and they
had mysterious communications printed in the local newspapers. The members
were required to maintain profound and absolute secrecy with reference to
everything connected with the order, and went at their work with great
glee, to the added mystification of the community. The result was that
everybody in the city of Pulaski and all throughout the surrounding
country, became possessed of the "joiner's itch" and sought admission. No
applications were solicited for membership, because the organizers knew
human nature well enough to know that if they gave out the impression that
they wished to be exclusive the applications would be both voluntary and
numerous. The organization grew very rapidly, and strangers coming to
Tennessee from other Southern States learned of it, became members, and
secured permission to start local organizations. By the fall and winter of
1866 the order had grown all over the South, and in nearly every community
there was a "Den" of Ku Kluxes enjoying the baffled curiosity and wild
speculations of a mystified public.
In March, 1867, the Reconstruction Acts were passed by Congress, and in
the month of April the actual work of reconstruction began. Then it was
that the Ku Klux Klan underwent its second stage of development and
became transformed into a band of regulators to handle the alarming
situation that immediately followed. Perhaps the best available authority
on the Klan in the country today is a little book written by Capt. John C.
Lester and Rev. D. L. Wilson, giving an insight into its organization and
real history. Captain Lester was one of the six original organizers, and
Mr. Wilson, while not a member, was a resident of Pulaski and was closely
in touch with the entire movement. In this work they stated that the
transformation of the society was effected in three ways:
(1) The impressions made by the order upon those who joined it; (2) the
impressions made upon the public by it; (3) the anomalous and peculiar
condition of affairs in the South at the time. The impression made upon
the man who joined was that behind all the amusement features of the
organization and, unexpressed in its ritualistic work, was a deep
purpose--a solemn mission that would be undertaken later. What it was none
knew, but the feeling existed that a mission existed, just the same. The
impressions made upon the public immediately showed the Klansmen that the
organization possessed a certain power that nobody had imagined it would
possess. This power was largely one of fright and intimidation, and was
shown in the case of the ignorant and superstitious negro more than in
that of the white people. Negroes would see the ghostly nocturnal Ku
Kluxes and imagine that they were spirits of deceased Confederate
soldiers, and the Klansmen were very quick to grasp the idea and use it to
the fullest advantage. In some cases a figure in white would ride up to a
negro's house, dismount and ask for a drink of water. The frightened negro
would hand him a gourd, which the rider would pour into a rubber bag,
concealed under his robe, and then demand a whole bucketful of water,
which he would dispose of in the same way, remarking, "That was the first
drink of water I have had since I was killed at Shiloh." In other cases
the Ku Klux members would wear false heads, ride up to a negro and,
removing the head, ask the negro to hold it. Skeleton hands would be
fastened to the wrist and held out for a handshake, which procedure
usually caused the terrified negro to make a hasty retreat. With the
superstition and natural tendency of their race to magnify happenings, the
negroes soon spread alarming tales among themselves as to the Ku Klux and
its doings, until presently the name was one that invoked horror and
terror. It is but natural, therefore, that knowing this new power of
frightening the negro, the members of the strange order exercised it to
the fullest extent.
In May, 1867, in order to form a strong sectional organization, a
convention was secretly held at Nashville, Tenn., and the Prescript of the
order was revised and amended by delegates from all of the States. Plans
were made for extensive work, and for propagating the order in every
community in the South. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest, having previously heard of
the organization made a careful investigation of it, and consented to
become its head, assuming the office of Grand Wizard immediately after the
Nashville Convention. He had been one of the South's most successful and
distinguished cavalry officers, was recognized as being able to handle men
in a masterful manner, and was a person of coolness and clear-headed
judgment. He at once set to work to reorganize the order, which had become
more or less demoralized under loose management, and made it a real factor
in handling the serious situation which grew more serious as the
reconstruction proceeded. He brought the membership in Tennessee up to
40,000 and the total membership in the South to 550,000, and did all he
could to keep the force in strong control.
A great many of the most prominent men in the South became members of the
organization, and were either active in the work or served in an advisory
capacity. Among them were Generals John B. Gordon, A. H. Colquitt, G. T.
Anderson and A. R. Lawton, of Georgia, Gen. W. J. Hardee, Gen. John C.
Brown, Capt. John W. Morton, Gen. George W. Gordon, and Gen. Albert Pike,
who later became one of the foremost Masonic authorities in the country.
Gen. Pike was the chief judicial officer of the Klan.
Among the first policies inaugurated by General Forrest was the courting
of widespread publicity, and an order was issued for a parade in full
regalia on July 4, 1867. In every Southern city parades of the Ku Klux
Klans were held, and served to act as an advertisement to the people of
the South that they were being protected, and to serve notice on the
carpetbagger and the negro that a new force had arisen for the purpose of
meeting their encroachments upon the liberties of the white people.
Then began the reign of the mysterious organization that ended in the
various restorations of the State government to the white people of the
South, most of which occurred in 1870, the last States to throw off the
yoke being South Carolina and Louisiana. What occurred during that time in
the way of actual events is but vaguely stated.
The fact that the whole period was one of the bitterest of partisan
politics makes it necessary to discount to a large degree the statements
of both sides of the controversy. It has been told by some that the
original Ku Klux Klan enforced its decrees and maintained law and order,
not so much by the overt acts it committed but by reason of the vague fear
and surmises on the part of the negro and carpetbagger as to what the Klan
could do.
In an address before the Bar Association of Texas in 1906, Hon. Thomas W.
Gregory, later Attorney-General of the United States, gave a history of
the old Klan, and in speaking of its work said:
"It is safe to say that ninety per cent of the work of the Klan
involved no act of personal violence. In most instances mere
knowledge of the fact that the Ku Klux were organized in the
community and patrolled it by night accomplished most that was
desired. In the case of nocturnal meetings of the negroes, organized
by scalawags and carpetbaggers, which proved disorderly and
offensive, sheeted horsemen would be found drawn up across every road
leading from the meeting place; and although not a word was spoken
and no violence whatever offered, that meeting was usually adjourned
_sine die_.... But masked riders and mystery were not the only Ku
Klux devices. Carpetbaggers and scalawags and their families were
ostracized in all walks of life--in the church, in the school, in
business, wherever men and women or even children gathered together,
no matter what the purpose or the place, the alien and the renegade,
and all that belonged or pertained to them were refused recognition
and consigned to outer darkness and the companionship of negroes.
"In addition to these methods, there were some of a much more drastic
nature. The sheeted horseman did not merely warn and intimidate,
especially when the warnings were not heeded. In many instances
negroes and carpetbaggers were whipped and in rare instances shot or
hanged. Notice to leave the country was frequently extended and
rarely declined, and if declined the results were likely to be
serious. Hanging was promptly administered to the house burner and
sometimes to the murderer; the defamer of women of good character was
usually whipped and sometimes executed if the offense was repeated;
threats of violence and oppression of the weak and defenseless if
persisted in after due warning met with drastic and sometimes cruel
remedies; mere corruption in public office was too universal for
punishment or even comment, but he who prostituted official power to
oppress the individual, a crime prevalent from one end of the country
to the other, especially in cases where it affected the widow and
orphan, was likely to be dealt with in no gentle way, in case a
warning was not promptly observed; those who advocated and practiced
social equality of the races and incited hostility of the blacks
against the whites were given a single notice to depart in haste, and
they rarely took time to reply."
Whether one looks upon the methods of the Ku Klux Klan as wise and humane
or as rough and cruel, the fact remains that its work was accomplished,
and state governments under carpetbag control, negro militia, acts of
Congress and proclamations of the President though backed by the army of
the United States, made but little headway against the silent force of
white men which was making a last desperate stand for all they held
sacred.
Lester and Wilson in commenting on the work of the Klan, even before it
was transformed into a movement of regulators say:
"The order contained within itself, by reason of the methods
practiced, sources of weakness. The devices and disguises by which
the Klan deceived outsiders enabled all who were so disposed, to
practice deception on the Klan itself. It placed in the hands of its
own members the facility to do deeds of violence for the
gratification of personal feeling, and have them credited to the
Klan. To evilly disposed men membership in the Klan was an inducement
to wrongdoing. It presented to all men a dangerous temptation, which,
in certain contingencies at any time likely to arise, it required a
considerable amount of moral robustness to resist. Many did not
withstand it. Up to this time, the majority had shown a fair
appreciation of the responsibilities of their self-imposed task of
preserving social order. But under any circumstances the natural
tendency of an organization such as this is to violence and
crime--much more under such circumstances as those then prevailing."
In September, 1868, Governor Brownlow of Tennessee called the legislature
into session, and caused a drastic act to be passed comparable only to the
Reconstruction Acts of Congress. Under its terms association or connection
with the Ku Klux Klan was punishable by a fine of $500 and imprisonment in
the penitentiary for not less than five years. Any inhabitant of the State
was constituted an officer possessing power to arrest without process any
one known to be or suspected of being a member of the organization; and to
feed, lodge or conceal a member was made a criminal offense punishable by
fine and imprisonment, and informers were allowed one-half the fine. In
spite of this drastic law, the Klan continued to actively operate in
Tennessee for over six months.
Partly because of this law, and partly because of the fact that in many
cases some of the "Dens" had gone beyond their instructions in coping with
the situation, and were showing a tendency to get beyond the control of
the men who were trying to conduct the movement honestly, but principally
because the purpose of its regulation work had been accomplished and there
remained no reason for its existence, General Forrest, in the latter part
of February, 1869, issued a proclamation as Grand Wizard declaring the Ku
Klux Klan dissolved and disbanded.
The substance of his order is included in his summary which reads:
"The Invisible Empire has accomplished the purpose for which it was
organized. Civil law now affords ample protection to life, liberty
and property; robbery and lawlessness are no longer unrebuked; the
better elements of society are no longer in dread for the safety of
their property, their persons, and their families. The Grand Wizard,
being invested with power to determine questions of paramount
importance, in the exercise of the power so conferred, now declares
the Invisible Empire and all the subdivisions thereof dissolved and
disbanded forever."
Thus ended the second period of Ku Kluxism in the South. A large number of
"Dens," however, paid no attention to the order of General Forrest, but
continued to act independently, and kept up their work until the late
seventies. The "Pale Faces," the "Constitutional Union Guards," the "White
Brotherhood," "White League," and the "Knights of the White Camelia" were
also kept up for several years after the organization of the Ku Klux Klan
was officially abandoned, it being very likely that many of the Klan units
joined in with these movements. It is generally understood that the work
done by these organizations, and by the irresponsible people who still
used the name of the old Klan, was more reckless and violent in its
character and was the cause of more bloodshed than the original movement.
At any rate there was less justification for the movement after 1870 than
in the first years of the reconstruction.
Ku Kluxism occupied a great deal of attention of Congress in 1870, 1871
and in 1872, the President issued proclamations against it backed by the
army, committees were sent by Congress to visit every section of the
South, volumes of testimony were taken, hundreds of speeches were made, in
some instances martial law was declared, and a drastic act was passed by
Congress intended to check the movement. It went on, however, until the
Federal troops were withdrawn, the carpetbaggers left the country, and all
of the State governments were in the control of the white men of the
South.
Mr. Gregory in summing up the whole Ku Klux movement said:
"Did the end aimed at and accomplished by the Ku Klux Klan justify
the movement? The opinion of the writer is that the movement was
fully justified, though he of course does not approve of the crimes
and excesses incident to it.
"The abuses under which the American colonies of England revolted in
1776 were mere child's play compared to those borne by the South
during the period of reconstruction, and the success of the later
movement as a justification of a last resort to revolutionary methods
was as pronounced as that of the former.
"The Ku Klux machine has been stored away in the Battle Abbey of the
nation as obsolete, we trust, as the causes which produced it; it
will stand there for all time as a reminder of how useless is the
prostitution of forms of law in an effort to do that which is
essentially unlawful, but it will also remain an eternal suggestion
to the vigilance committee and the regulator."