The Ku Klux Movement
The Ku Klux movement, which took the form of secret revolutionary
societies, grew out of a general conviction among the whites that the
reconstruction policies were impossible and not to be endured. Somers,
an English traveler, says that at this time "nearly every respectable
white man in the Southern States was not only disfranchised but under
fear of arrest or confiscation; the old foundations of authority were
utterly razed before any new ones had yet been laid, and in the dark and
benighted interval the remains of the Confederate armies--swept after a
long and heroic day of fair fight from the field--flitted before the
eyes of the people in this weird and midnight shape of a Ku Klux Klan."
Ryland Randolph, an Alabama editor who was also an official of the Klan,
stated in his paper that "the origin of Ku Klux Klan is in the galling
despotism that broods like a night-mare over these Southern States--a
fungus growth of military tyranny superinduced by the fostering of Loyal
Leagues, the abrogation of our civil laws, the habitual violation of our
national Constitution, and a persistent prostitution of all government,
all resources and all powers, to degrade the white man by the
establishment of negro supremacy."
The secret orders, regardless of their original purposes, were all
finally to be found opposing radical reconstruction. Everywhere their
objects were the same: to recover for the white race their former
control of society and government, and to destroy the baneful influence
of the alien among the blacks. The people of the South were by law
helpless to take steps towards setting up any kind of government in a
land infested by a vicious element--Federal and Confederate deserters,
bushwhackers, outlaws of every description, and negroes, some of whom
proved insolent and violent in their newly found freedom. Nowhere was
property or person safe, and for a time many feared a negro
insurrection. General Hardee said to his neighbors, "I advise you to get
ready for what may come. We are standing over a sleeping volcano."
To cope with this situation ante-bellum patrols--the "patter-rollers" as
the negroes called them--were often secretly reorganized. In each
community for several months after the Civil War, and in many of them
for months before the end of the war, there were informal vigilance
committees. Some of these had such names as the Black Cavalry and Men of
Justice in Alabama, the Home Guards in many other places, while the
anti-Confederate societies of the war, the Heroes of America, the Red
Strings, and the Peace Societies, transformed themselves in certain
localities into regulatory bodies. Later these secret societies numbered
scores, perhaps hundreds, varying from small bodies of local police to
great federated bodies which covered almost the entire South and even
had membership in the North and West. Other important organizations were
the Constitutional Union Guards, the Pale Faces, the White Brotherhood,
the Council of Safety, the '76 Association, the Sons of '76, the Order
of the White Rose, and the White Boys. As the fight against
reconstruction became bolder, the orders threw off their disguises and
appeared openly as armed whites fighting for the control of society. The
White League of Louisiana, the White Line of Mississippi, the White
Man's party of Alabama, and the Rifle Clubs of South Carolina, were
later manifestations of the general Ku Klux movement.
The two largest secret orders, however, were the Ku Klux Klan, from
which the movement took its name, and the Knights of the White Camelia.
The Ku Klux Klan originated at Pulaski, Tennessee, in the autumn of
1865, as a local organization for social purposes. The founders were
young Confederates, united for fun and mischief. The name was an
accidental corruption of the Greek word Kuklos, a circle. The officers
adopted queer sounding titles and strange disguises. Weird night riders
in ghostly attire thoroughly frightened the superstitious negroes, who
were told that the spirits of dead Confederates were abroad. This
terrorizing of the blacks successfully provided the amusement which the
founders desired and there were many applications for admission to the
society. The Pulaski Club, or Den, was in the habit of parading in full
uniform at social gatherings of the whites at night, much to the delight
of the small boys and girls. Pulaski was near the Alabama line, and many
of the young men of Alabama who saw these parades or heard of them
organized similar Dens in the towns of Northern Alabama. Nothing but
horseplay, however, took place at the meetings. In 1867 and 1868 the
order appeared in parade in the towns of the adjoining States and, as we
are told, "cut up curious gyrations" on the public squares.
There was a general belief outside the order that there was a purpose
behind all the ceremonial and frolic of the Dens; many joined the order
convinced that its object was serious; others saw the possibilities of
using it as a means of terrorizing the negroes. After men discovered the
power of the Klan over the negroes, indeed, they were generally
inclined, owing to the disordered conditions of the time, to act as a
sort of police patrol and to hold in check the thieving negroes, the
Union League, and the "loyalists." In this way, from being merely a
number of social clubs the Dens swiftly became bands of regulators,
taking on many new fantastic qualities along with their new seriousness
of purpose. Some of the more ardent spirits led the Dens far in the
direction of violence and outrage. Attempts were made by the parent Den
at Pulaski to regulate the conduct of the others, but, owing to the
loose organization, the effort met with little success. Some of the
Dens, indeed, lost all connection with the original order.
A general organization of these societies was perfected at a convention
held in Nashville in May, 1867, just as the Reconstruction Acts were
being put into operation. A constitution called the Prescript was
adopted which provided for a national organization. The former slave
States, except Delaware, constituted the Empire, which was ruled by the
Grand Wizard (then General Forrest) with a staff of ten Genii; each
State was a realm under a Grand Dragon and eight Hydras; the next
subdivision was a Dominion, consisting of several counties, ruled by a
Grand Titan and six Furies; the county or Province was governed by a
Grand Giant and four Goblins; the unit was the Den or community
organization, of which there might be several in each county, each under
a Grand Cyclops and two Nighthawks. The Genii, Hydras, Furies, Goblins,
and Nighthawks were staff officers. The private members were called
Ghouls. The order had no name, and at first was designated by two stars
(**), later by three (***). Sometimes it was called the Invisible Empire
of Ku Klux Klan.
Any white man over eighteen might be admitted to the Den after
nomination by a member and strict investigation by a committee. The oath
demanded obedience and secrecy. The Dens governed themselves by the
ordinary rules of deliberative bodies. The punishment for betrayal of
secrecy was "the extreme penalty of the Law." None of the secrets was to
be written, and there was a "Register" of alarming adjectives, such as
terrible, horrible, furious, doleful, bloody, appalling, frightful,
gloomy, which was used as a cipher code in dating the odd Ku Klux
orders.
The general objects of the order were thus set forth in the revised
Prescript: first, to protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless
from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent,
and the brutal; to relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the
suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and orphans of
Confederate soldiers; second, to protect and defend the Constitution of
the United States and all laws passed in conformity thereto, and to
protect the States and people thereof from all invasion from any source
whatever; third, to aid and assist in the execution of all
"constitutional" laws, and to protect the people from unlawful arrest,
and from trial except by their peers according to the laws of the land.
But the tests for admission gave further indication of the objects of
the order. No Republican, no Union Leaguer, and no member of the
G. A. R. might become a member. The members were pledged to oppose negro
equality of any kind, to favor emancipation of the Southern whites and
the restoration of their rights, and to maintain constitutional
government and equitable laws.
Prominent men testified that the order became popular because the whites
felt that they were persecuted and that there was no legal protection,
no respectable government. General (later Senator) Pettus said that
through all the workings of the Federal Government ran the principle
that "we are an inferior, degraded people and not fit to be trusted."
General Clanton of Alabama further explained that "there is not a
respectable white woman in the Negro Belt of Alabama who will trust
herself outside of her house without some protector.... So far as our
State Government is concerned, we are in the hands of camp-followers,
horse-holders, cooks, bottle-washers, and thieves.... We have passed out
from the hands of the brave soldiers who overcame us, and are turned
over to the tender mercies of squaws for torture.... I see negro
police--great black fellows--leading white girls around the streets of
Montgomery, and locking them up in jails."
The Klan first came into general prominence in 1868 with the report of
the Federal commanders in the South concerning its activities. Soon
after that date the order spread through the white counties of the
South, in many places absorbing the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces,
and some other local organizations which had been formed in the upper
part of the Black Belt. But it was not alone in the field. The order
known as the Knights of the White Camelia, founded in Louisiana in 1867
and formally organized in 1868, spread rapidly over the lower South
until it reached the territory occupied by the Ku Klux Klan. It was
mainly a Black Belt order, and on the whole had a more substantial and
more conservative membership than the other large secret bodies. Like
the Ku Klux Klan, it also absorbed several minor local societies.
The White Camelia had a national organization with headquarters in New
Orleans. Its business was conducted by a Supreme Council of the United
States, with Grand, Central, and Subordinate Councils for each State,
county, and community. All communication within the order took place by
passwords and cipher; the organization and the officers were similar to
those of the Ku Klux Klan; and all officers were designated by initials.
An ex-member states that "during the three years of its existence here
[Perry County, Alabama] I believe its organization and discipline were
as perfect as human ingenuity could have made it." The fundamental
object of the White Camelia was the "maintenance of the supremacy of the
white race," and to this end the members were constrained "to observe a
marked distinction between the races" and to restrain the "African race
to that condition of social and political inferiority for which God has
destined it." The members were pledged to vote only for whites, to
oppose negro equality in all things, but to respect the legitimate
rights of negroes.
The smaller orders were similar in purpose and organization to the Ku
Klux Klan and the White Camelia. Most of them joined or were affiliated
with the large societies. Probably a majority of the men of the South
were associated at some time during this period with these revolutionary
bodies. As a rule the politicians, though approving, held aloof. Public
opinion generally supported the movement so long as the radicals made
serious attempts to carry out the reconstruction policies.
The task before the secret orders was to regulate the conduct of the
blacks and their leaders in order that honor, life, and property might
be secure. They planned to accomplish this aim by playing upon the
fears, superstitions, and cowardice of the black race--in a word, by
creating a white terror to counteract the black one. To this end they
made use of strange disguises, mysterious and fearful conversation,
midnight rides and drills, and silent parades. As long as secrecy and
mystery were to be effective in dealing with the negroes, costume was an
important matter. These disguises varied with the locality and often
with the individual. High cardboard hats, covered with white cloth often
decorated with stars or pictures of animals, white masks with holes cut
for eyes, nose and mouth bound with red braid to give a horrible
appearance, and frequently a long tongue of red flannel so fixed that it
could be moved with the wearer's tongue, and a long white robe--these
made up a costume which served at the same time as a disguise and as a
means of impressing the impressionable negro. Horses were covered with
sheets or white cloth held on by the saddle and by belts, and sometimes
the animals were even painted. Skulls of sheep and cattle, and even of
human beings were often carried on the saddlebows to add another element
of terror. A framework was sometimes made to fit the shoulders of a
Ghoul which caused him to appear twelve feet high. A skeleton wooden
hand at the end of a stick served to greet terrified negroes at
midnight. For safety every man carried a small whistle and a brace of
pistols.
The trembling negro who ran into a gathering of the Ku Klux on his
return from a Loyal League meeting was informed that the white-robed
figures he saw were the spirits of the Confederate dead killed at
Chickamauga or Shiloh, now unable to rest in their graves because of the
conduct of the negroes. He was told in a sepulchral voice of the
necessity for his remaining more at home and taking a less active part
in predatory excursions abroad. In the middle of the night a sleeping
negro might wake to find his house surrounded by a ghostly company, or
to see several terrifying figures standing by his bedside. They were,
they said, the ghosts of men whom he had formerly known. They had
scratched through from Hell to warn the negroes of the consequences of
their misconduct. Hell was a dry and thirsty land: and they asked him
for water. Bucket after bucket of water disappeared into a sack of
leather, rawhide, or rubber, concealed within the flowing robe. The
story is told of one of these night travelers who called at the cabin of
a radical negro in Attakapas County, Louisiana. After drinking three
buckets of water to the great astonishment of the darky, the traveler
thanked him and told him that he had traveled nearly a thousand miles
within twenty-four hours, and that that was the best water he had tasted
since he was killed at the battle of Shiloh. The negro dropped the
bucket, overturned chairs and table in making his escape through the
window, and was never again seen or heard of by residents of that
community. Another incident is told of a parade in Pulaski, Tennessee:
"While the procession was passing a corner on which a negro man was
standing, a tall horseman in hideous garb turned aside from the line,
dismounted and stretched out his bridle rein toward the negro, as if he
desired him to hold his horse. Not daring to refuse, the frightened
African extended his hand to grasp the rein. As he did so, the Ku Klux
took his own head from his shoulders and offered to place that also in
the outstretched hand. The negro stood not upon the order of his going,
but departed with a yell of terror. To this day he will tell you: 'He
done it, suah, boss. I seed him do it.'"
It was seldom necessary at this early stage to use violence, for the
black population was in an ecstasy of fear. A silent host of
white-sheeted horsemen parading the country roads at night was
sufficient to reduce the blacks to good behavior for weeks or months.
One silent Ghoul posted near a meeting place of the League would be the
cause of the immediate dissolution of that club. Cow bones in a sack
were rattled within earshot of the terrified negroes. A horrible being,
fifteen feet tall, walking through the night toward a place of
congregation, was very likely to find that every one had vacated the
place before he arrived. A few figures wrapped in sheets and sitting on
tombstones in a graveyard near which negroes were accustomed to pass
would serve to keep the immediate community quiet for weeks and give the
locality a reputation for "hants" which lasted long.
To prevent detection on parade, members of the Klan often stayed out of
the parade in their own town and were to be seen freely and
conspicuously mingling with the spectators. A man who believed that he
knew every horse in the vicinity and was sure that he would be able to
identify the riders by their horses was greatly surprised upon lifting
the disguise of the horse nearest him to find the animal upon which he
himself had ridden into town a short while before. The parades were
always silent and so arranged as to give the impression of very large
numbers. In the regular drills which were held in town and country the
men showed that they had not forgotten their training in the Confederate
army. There were no commands save in a very low tone or in a mysterious
language, and usually only signs or whistle signals were used.
Such pacific methods were successful to a considerable degree until the
carpetbaggers and scalawags were placed in office under the
Reconstruction Acts. Then more violent methods were necessary. The Klans
patrolled disturbed communities, visited, warned, and frightened
obnoxious individuals, whipped some, and even hanged others. Until
forbidden by law or military order, the newspapers were accustomed to
print the mysterious proclamations of the Ku Klux. The following, which
was circulated in Montgomery, Alabama, in April 1868, is a typical
specimen:
K. K. K.
Clan of Vega.
hdqr's k.k.k. hospitallers.
Vega Clan, New Moon,
3rd Month, Anno K. K. K. 1.
Order No. K. K.
Clansmen--Meet at the Trysting Spot when Orion Kisses the Zenith. The
doom of treason is Death. Dies Iræ. The wolf is on his walk--the serpent
coils to strike. Action! Action!! Action!!! By midnight and the Tomb; by
Sword and Torch and the Sacred Oath at Forrester's Altar, I bid you
come! The clansmen of Glen Iran and Alpine will greet you at the
new-made grave.
Remember the Ides of April.
By command of the Grand D. I. H.
Cheg. V.
The work of the secret orders was successful. As bodies of vigilantes,
the Klans and the Councils regulated the conduct of bad negroes,
punished criminals who were not punished by the State, looked after the
activities and teachings of Northern preachers and teachers, dispersed
hostile gatherings of negroes, and ran out of the community the worst of
the reconstructionist officials. They kept the negroes quiet and freed
them to some extent from the influence of evil leaders. The burning of
houses, gins, mills, and stores ceased; property became more secure;
people slept safely at night; women and children walked abroad in
security; the incendiary agents who had worked among the negroes left
the country; agitators, political, educational, and religious, became
more moderate; "bad niggers" ceased to be bad; labor became less
disorganized; the carpetbaggers and scalawags ceased to batten on the
Southern communities. It was not so much a revolution as the defeat of a
revolution. Society was replaced in the old historic grooves from which
war and reconstruction had jarred it.
Successful as was the Ku Klux movement in these respects, it had at the
same time many harmful results. Too often local orders fell under the
control of reckless or lawless men and the Klan was then used as a cloak
to cover violence and thievery; family and personal feuds were carried
into the orders and fought out; and anti-negro feeling in many places
found expression in activities designed to drive the blacks from the
country. It was easy for any outlaw to hide himself behind the
protection of a secret order. So numerous did these men become that
after 1868 there was a general exodus of the leading reputable members,
and in 1869 the formal disbanding of the Klan was proclaimed by General
Forrest, the Grand Wizard. The White Camelia and other orders also
gradually went out of existence. Numerous attempts were made to suppress
the secret movement by the military commanders, the state governments,
and finally by Congress, but none of these was entirely successful, for
in each community the secret opposition lasted as long as it was needed.
The political effects of the orders, however, survived their organized
existence. Some of the Southern States began to go Democratic in spite
of the Reconstruction Acts and the Amendments, and there was little
doubt that the Ku Klux movement had aided in this change. In order to
preserve the achievements of radical reconstruction Congress passed, in
1870 and 1871, the enforcement acts which had been under debate for
nearly two years. The first act (May 31, 1870) was designed to protect
the negro's right to vote and was directed at individuals as well as
against States. Section six, indeed, was aimed specifically at the Ku
Klux Klan. This act was a long step in the direction of giving the
Federal Government control over state elections. But as North Carolina
went wholly and Alabama partially Democratic in 1870, a Supplementary
Act (February 28, 1871) went further and placed the elections for
members of Congress completely under Federal control, and also
authorized the use of thousands of deputy marshals at elections. As the
campaign of 1872 drew near, Grant and his advisers became solicitous to
hold all the Southern States which had not been regained by the
Democrats. Accordingly, on March 23, 1871, the President sent a message
to Congress declaring that in some of the States the laws could not be
enforced and asked for remedial legislation. Congress responded with an
act (April 20, 1871), commonly called the "Ku Klux Act," which gave the
President despotic military power to uphold the remaining negro
governments and authorized him to declare a state of war when he
considered it necessary. Of this power Grant made use in only one
instance. In October, 1871, he declared nine counties of South Carolina
in rebellion and put them under martial law.
During the ten years following 1870, several thousand arrests were made
under the enforcement acts and about 1250 convictions were secured,
principally in Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Tennessee. Most of these violations of election laws, however, had
nothing to do with the Ku Klux movement, for by 1870 the better class of
members had withdrawn from the secret orders. But though the enforcement
acts checked these irregularities to a considerable extent, they
nevertheless failed to hold the South for the radicals and essential
parts of them were declared unconstitutional a few years later.
In order to justify the passage of the enforcement acts and to obtain
campaign material for use in 1872, Congress appointed a committee,
organized on the very day when the Ku Klux Act was approved, to
investigate conditions in the Southern States. From June to August,
1871, the committee took testimony in Washington, and in the fall
subcommittees visited several Southern States. Tennessee, Virginia,
Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were, however, omitted from the
investigation. Notwithstanding the partisan purpose and methods of the
investigation, the report of the committee and the accompanying
testimony constituted a Democratic rather than a Republican document. It
is a veritable mine of information about the South between 1865 and
1871. The Democratic minority members made skillful use of their
opportunity to expose conditions in the South. They were less concerned
to meet the charges made against the Ku Klux Klan than to show why such
movements came about. The Republicans, concerned mainly about material
for the presidential campaign, neglected the broader phases of the
situation.
Opposition to the effects of reconstruction did not come to an end with
the dissolution of the more famous orders. On the contrary, it now
became public and open and resulted in the organization, after 1872, of
the White League, the Mississippi Shot Gun Plan, the White Man's Party
in Alabama, and the Rifle Clubs in South Carolina. The later movements
were distinctly but cautiously anti-negro. There was most irritation in
the white counties where there were large numbers of negroes. Negro
schools and churches were burned because they served as meeting places
for negro political organizations. The color line began to be more and
more sharply drawn. Social and business ostracism continued to be
employed against white radicals, while the negroes were discharged from
employment or were driven from their rented farms.
The Ku Klux movement, it is to be noted in retrospect, originated as an
effort to restore order in the war-stricken Southern States. The secrecy
of its methods appealed to the imagination and caused its rapid
expansion, and this secrecy was inevitable because opposition to
reconstruction was not lawful. As the reconstruction policies were put
into operation, the movement became political and used violence when
appeals to superstitious fears ceased to be effective. The Ku Klux Klan
centered, directed, and crystallized public opinion, and united the
whites upon a platform of white supremacy. The Southern politicians
stood also from the movement but accepted the results of its work. It
frightened the negroes and bad whites into better conduct, and it
encouraged the conservatives and aided them to regain control of
society, for without the operations of the Klan the black districts
would never have come again under white control. Towards the end,
however, its methods frequently became unnecessarily violent and did
great harm to Southern society. The Ku Klux system of regulating society
is as old as history; it had often been used before; it may even be used
again. When a people find themselves persecuted by aliens under legal
forms, they will invent some means outside the law for protecting
themselves; and such experiences will inevitably result in a weakening
of respect for law and in a return to more primitive methods of justice.