Part 2

I was long in believing that such deeds, worthy alone of the incarnate fiend himself, could be perpetrated in a civilized community. I made all possible allowance for the political and social situation. I determined to know whereof I affirmed, and resolved that when I obtained this knowledge, I would give the information to the country. I was as free from political bias as it was possible for a man to be who felt it to be a part of the duty he owed to society to exercise the elective franchise. I had never mingled in politics, but had uniformly cast my vote with either political party which I deemed had the best interests of the nation, and the welfare and advancement of the people, at heart, and could not bring my mind to believe, at first, that there was a deep political significance underlying this movement, and that it had its ramifications from State to State, all leading to one great center, with one common head who, in the interest of any political party, governed and directed the dreadful machine, and that it meant nothing less than the subversion of the popular government.

The facts and figures gradually undeceived me. I could see that there was a mysterious something at work that had closed men's mouths most effectually, and that disaffection, consternation and terror gained ground daily. Even, my brethren of the pulpit, with whom I was associated in the different places I visited, were affected to such a degree that they no longer dared to preach the free sentiments of their hearts.

No one but an actual resident of the South, at this time, can form anything like an adequate idea of the reign of terror, that this condition of affairs had inaugurated during the succeeding two years and more, of President Johnson's administration. Everywhere throughout the South that I travelled, the hydra headed monster met me. I tried to believe in all charity that the movement sprung from the ignorant and uneducated masses who saw, or thought they saw, the origin and cause of all their misfortunes in the negro, and the liberal minded whites of the South who had countenanced and urged his enfranchisement in the interest of human progress; but the facts were everywhere against the theory.

It was evident that a formidable organization, the result of intelligent men counseling together, and devising wicked plans for the accomplishment of wicked purposes, existed in all the Southern States; that it had its ritual, its oaths, its signs, tokens and passwords, its constitution, by-laws and governing rules, its edicts, warnings, disguises, secret modes of communication, intelligent concert of action, and all framed and planned in a manner that showed the authors to be men of education and superior minds. In North and South Carolina, in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, in Florida, Mississippi and Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, it existed in a greater or less degree, and its advent was everywhere marked with the most brutal outrages.

The intelligence of these wrongs was not spread from one community to another by the newspapers. These, when not in the interest of the order itself, were intimidated into silence. When the outrages were so flagrant as to compel some show of attention, such as necessitated the action of a coroner, juries were selected, the members of which were members of this mysterious order, and the verdict usually was that the victim came to his death by injuries inflicted by himself or by negroes.

The disaffection spread daily. The seeds of the order, and their fruits everywhere manifested, were sown in the courts and grand juries. Under such a condition of affairs there was no longer security for life or property. The idea of obtaining justice for any of the wrongs perpetrated, passed out of the minds of the sufferers entirely. The effect was generally demoralizing. Official incompetency and corruption aided rather than stemmed the rushing torrent that was bearing this section of the Republic to anarchy and financial ruin.

A large class of persons not heretofore alluded to, but who formed a very important part of society, looked on without apparent interest. These were men of wealth and education, who neither sought to justify the wrongs being done, or made any attempt to oppose them, but by their very silence gave a tacit consent to the wicked plans of the conspirators. They were a class "who rejoice to do evil and delight in the forwardness of the wicked."

A system arose exactly in counterpart with that of the old Spanish Inquisition. Personal hatred toward a citizen, black or white, was sufficient warrant for reporting his name and residence to the members of the order as a "radical republican" and a "negro worshiper," and he was forthwith warned to leave the place on penalty of being whipped, or suffering a worse fate. Hundreds of young men with whom the writer has conferred, pointed to men of maturer age, property holders and men of influence, and confessed that they had been induced to enter the general conspiracy, because they were told these men were at its head and after joining it learned that they had not been deceived in this respect, and yet they found the order so arranged that they could discover nothing, and were allowed to know nothing, of its workings, beyond the circle to which they had been admitted, and however revolting the practices of their associates were to them, the oath they had taken, and the feeling of terror inspired by the initiation and the penalty attached to recanting members, compelled them to continue their allegiance, and acquiesce and aid in the outrages.

Even the women seemed to have caught the general infection, and sought to justify the dreadful events transpiring about them upon the ground that this was the only way in which the rights and liberties of the South could be preserved.

That men holding high official positions, and moving in the most respectable circles, organized these outrages, selected the victims and accompanied the rabble in the execution of their designs, is indisputable. Inoffensive women seeing their husbands, fathers, and brothers torn from their sides and scourged in their presence, became infuriated at the indecent spectacle, and in their agonized frenzy, rushed upon the assailants and wrenched off the masks behind which they skulked, only to behold the faces of men who, up to that hour, they had deemed the ones to whom, from their superior intelligence, they should have looked for counsel.

Traveling from place to place and directing the general movement, were men who had held positions as generals in the armies of the rebellion. Disappointed political tricksters aiming to elevate to power a party whom they claimed had been in sympathy with the rebel cause North and South; and determined to do this though the land of their birth should go to ruin. Anarchy and confusion usurp the places of law and order, and the blood of the outraged ones reach up to heaven in cries for vengence.

These men overlooked the fact that they were setting in motion a power that was destined to pass from their control, and make them as a people of whom it was written: "I will even give them unto the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life; and their dead bodies shall be as meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth." They desired to heed no note of warning regarding the future so that the ends of the present were accomplished; and under their guidance, lust and rapine and murder stalked abroad, and the land seemed to be wholly given up to the machinations of the evil one and the unbridled license of his chosen servants.

Nowhere upon the dial plate of the nineteenth century did the index finger of the hand of God point with such unerring and terrible certainty. It seemed as if the Lord had spoken once more as he spake in the days of the Prophet Isaiah:

"What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to. I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the walls thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns * * * for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry."

Good men bowed their heads in anguish. They had lifted their eyes to the far North, from whence should come their help, and they had looked in vain. The body corporate was too fatally diseased to cure itself Rottenness and corruption hung upon its borders, and were slowly sapping the foundations of its life. Its energies were prostrated, its internal recuperative power destroyed. Help must come from without; and the earnest prayers of the devoted and doomed went up to the throne of God in heartfelt supplication, that wisdom might dwell in the hearts of the counsellors to whom the destinies of the nation had been confided; but it seemed as if the heavens were as adamant that could not be pierced, and that no answer would be vouchsafed to the sincere appeal."

Such was the situation at the close of President Johnson's term of office, and the elevation of General Grant to the presidential chair. It remained to be seen whether the incoming administration would turn the deaf ear to the suffering and disorganized South as its predecessor had done, or whether, under the guidance of its new Executive head, order should be brought out of chaos, the crooked paths made straight, and the prophecy fulfilled: "Behold, I will redeem them with an outstretched arm."

The recitals that follow give answer to this query more conclusively than the most elaborate of arguments. They show, from statistics gathered under the most favorable circumstances by the writer in person, the existence of a numerous and formidable organization of armed men, working in secret, disguising themselves beyond all hope of recognition, committing depredations upon persons and property, frequently resulting in the total destruction of both, and instituting the most bitter and inhuman persecutions, for opinion's sake, that ever disgraced the history of a nation.

The facts are beyond all hope of successful denial. They are born out by the records of the local and federal courts, by the testimony of the surviving sufferers and by the voluntary confession of recanting members of the organization.

A full expose of the order, its origin and secrets, its designs and purposes, its operations and results, are related with an unswerving fidelity to the truth, and with all charity to the people with whom it had its rise, and among whom, by the grace of God, and under the firm but humane course pursued by the present administration in the enforcement of the law, and the establishment of the right, it must have its fall. The information came to the knowledge of the writer through those who had been active members of the order, and who had abandoned it the moment the strong arm of the Government had been felt in the vigorous enforcement of the laws, through its secret agents, thus rendering it safe for them to do so.

The revelations that follow, speak in tones that must reverberate throughout the length and breadth of the continent, and are submitted as terrible evidences of the fearful condition to which communities may be reduced, when, ignoring the cardinal principles of right and justice, they abandon themselves to the control of unscrupulous men, whose overweening ambition destroy every other sentiment, and who esteem no measures too vile or inhuman that will lead to the accomplishment of their own base ends.

ORDERS OF THE KU KLUX KLANS.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL UNION GUARDS.--KNIGHTS OF THE WHITE CAMELIA.--ORDER OF INVISIBLE EMPIRE.--THE WHITE BROTHERHOOD.--UNION AND YOUNG MEN'S DEMOCRACY.

ORIGIN, ORGANIZATION, INITIATION, OATHS, OBJECTS AND OPERATIONS.

_He discovereth deep things out of darkness; And bringeth out to light the shadow of death._ JOB. XII., 22.

In the early part of 1866, or nearly a year after the close of the war of the rebellion, there was organized in the Southern States, a secret order, known as the "Constitutional Union Guards," having a constitution, by-laws, oaths of allegiance, modes of recognition and approach, and a ritual, all of which were legendary and unwritten. Its places of meetings were styled Camps. Its officers were: a "Commander," "South Commander," "Grand Commander," "Chief of Dominion," and "Grand Cyclops," or supreme head of the order.

The Commander is the chief officer of a local Camp. He issues the call for, and presides over, all its meetings. Initiates members; administers the oath; invests them with the signs, grips, and passwords necessary in making themselves known as members of the Order; and imparts to them the signal code of sounds by which they are governed in their excursions, and at times when, for obvious reasons, it is not expedient to utter words of command.

The South Commander is, to all appearances, a lay member of the Camp. His power, however, when he chooses to exercise it, is superior to that of the Commander. He is an officer without apparent function, and yet it is a portion of the oath attached to the second, or supreme degree, that he shall be obeyed in preference to any other known or constituted authority. He can prorogue the Camp, or dissolve it altogether, whenever he deems fit, and is amenable to no one inside of the Camp of which he is a member.

The office of this functionary is not an elective one. Whenever a Camp is formed, the authority under which it works assigns to it a South Commander, and he is the only person through whom communications can be received from, or made to, that authority. All the doings of the Camp, the number and names of its members, the warnings issued, the persons visited, and all other proceedings, are carefully noted by the South Commander, and reported by him to the Grand Commander of the District in which the Camp is located, and he is the only member of the Camp who has knowledge of that officer. The South Commander is not permitted to know any Grand Commander save the one to whom he reports, nor does he know to whom his superior is amenable.

The Grand Commander has charge of a District comprising a certain number of Camps (usually seven), from the South Commanders of which he receives reports as above stated. It is his duty to condense these reports into cypher, which he transmits to the officer above him, known as the Chief of Dominion, and from whom he receives the general instructions and orders to be transmitted to the various Camps of his District through the South Commander. He in turn is not permitted to know any Chief of Dominion save the one to whom he reports; and, like his inferiors, is in utter ignorance as to whom his superior is amenable.

The Chief of Dominion has charge of all the operations of the Order in some State assigned to his care. He receives reports from the Grand Commanders thereof; and transmits the same to the "Grand Cyclops," or supreme head of the Order, and President ex-officio of the "Supreme Grand Council." This Supreme Grand Council is composed of the Chiefs of Dominions, and from them emanate the instructions which, being decided upon in the conclave of the Council, are promulgated to the rank and file through the Grand Commanders, South Commanders, and Commanders of Camps.

By this peculiar system of organization the moving spirits of the Order are conversant with all that transpires below them, while their own identity is carefully concealed from the masses whom they design to move for their own vile purposes. The objects of the Order are somewhat covertly set forth in the oaths administered to the members, but previous to this time the grand designs intended to be accomplished were known only to the members of the Supreme Grand Council. The initiation is comprised in two degrees, the first or probationary degree being intended to test the members, and the second or supreme degree for those of the first who have been found worthy of advancement. The signs, grips, &c., are the same in both degrees, with the exception of one test word, and a supplementary ritual hereafter to be explained.

ORDER OF INITIATION.

FIRST, OR PROBATIONARY DEGREE.

The first or probationary degree of the Order is intended for the masses. The candidate for initiation is selected, so far as possible, with reference to his political proclivities, if he has any. He must be known to the member proposing him to be opposed to the Radical party; to be or to have been in sympathy with the cause of the rebellion; to be opposed to the elevation of the negro to a social and political equality with the whites; and to have a hatred of negro worshipers, carpet-baggers, and scallawags, as those terms are interpreted in the Order.

These points being satisfactorily settled, he is notified to proceed to a secluded place on a designated night. There he is met by three Conductors, who blindfold and lead him to the vicinity of the Camp, which, in order the more effectually to guard against surprise, rarely assembles twice in the same place. On the way he and his Conductors are encountered by a guard or sentinel, who challenges the party with:

"Who comes here?"

His Conductors reply: "A friend."

The guard asks: "A friend to what?"

He is answered: "My country."

The candidate is then allowed to pass into the Camp, and is conducted to the center of the assembled members, when the following oath is administered to him by the Commander:

INITIATORY OATH.

"You solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God and these witnesses, that you will never reveal the secrets that are about to be imparted to you, and that you will be true to the principles of this brotherhood and its members; that you are not now a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Red String Order, the Union League, Heroes of America, or any other organization whose aim and intention is to destroy the rights of the South, or to elevate the negro to a political equality with yourself; and that you will never assist at the initiation into this Order of any member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Red String Order, the Union League, Heroes of America, or any one holding Radical views or opinions. You furthermore swear that you will oppose all Radicals and negroes in all of their political designs, and that, should any Radical or negro impose on or abuse or injure any member of this brotherhood, you will assist in punishing him in any manner the Camp may direct; and you furthermore swear that you will never reveal any of the orders, acts, or edicts of this brotherhood, and that you will obey all calls and summonses from the Chief of your Camp or brotherhood, should it be in your power to do so; and that, should any member of the brotherhood or his family be in jeopardy, you will inform them of their danger, and go to their assistance. You further swear that you will never give the word of distress unless you are in great need of assistance; and should you hear it given by any brother, you will go to his or their assistance; and should any member of this brotherhood reveal any of its secrets, acts, orders, or edicts, you will assist in punishing him in any way the Camp may direct or approve, so help you God."

During the administration of this oath, the members surround the initiate, dressed in long, white gowns, high, conical shaped, white hats, and their faces shrouded in white masks. At the conclusion of the oath, the candidate is made to kiss the book. The bandage is then removed from his eyes. The Commander approaches, and proceeds to instruct him in the

SIGNS, GRIPS, AND PASSWORD.

Signs of recognition and approach:

_First._--Strike the fingers of the right hand briskly upon the hair over the right ear, bringing the hand forward and partially around the ear, as if describing a half moon.

_Answer._--Same sign made with left hand over left ear.

_Second._--Thrust the right hand into the pant's pocket, with the exception of the thumb, at the same time bringing the right heel into the hollow of the left foot.

_Answer._--Same sign with the left hand, bringing the left heel into the hollow of the right foot.

As a farther precaution search is made by the hailing party as if for a pin in the right lappel of the coat.

_Answer._--A similar search in the left lappel of the coat.

The GRIP is given by placing the forefinger on the pulse of the person you shake hands with.

_Countersign._--If halted by a camp or picket on the public highway at night, the following colloquy ensues:

"Who comes there?"

"A friend!"

"A friend of what?"

"My country!"

"What country?"

"I, S, A, Y." (Repeating each letter slowly.)

"N, O, T, H, I, N, G." (Repeating each letter slowly.)

"The word?"

"Retribution!"

These countersigns are issued every three months. The one here given was in vogue at the time of the discovery of the order.

A member of any order of the Ku Klux Klan of the first or probationary degree, in distress, and requiring speedy aid, will use a word signal, or cry of distress: "SHILOH!"

In expeditions conducted under direction of the Commander, or any of the brethren detailed by him to act as head, a code of signals by sounds, made with whistles, is used, in order that the members may not be recognized by their voices.

DIVISIONS OF THE ORDER.

There are several divisions of the order of the KU KLUX KLANS, all working under the same ritual and oaths, and having the same signs, grips, passwords, modes of approach, and general conduct of raids and midnight excursions. These are known under the names of "Knights of the White Camelia," "The Invisible Empire," "The White Brotherhood," "The Unknown Multitude," "The Union and Young Men's Democracy." All work in disguise, with the exception of the latter, who work openly as well as in disguise, and are all under the instructions of the "Grand Cyclops" and the Supreme Grand Council. They all have one and the same object, which is as plainly set forth in the oath as it well can be in an obligation of that character.

The difference in names and styles has been adopted for a two-fold purpose. First, to conceal the origin, object, and design of the order, and its founders and directors; secondly, to conceal its extent and numbers, and make it appear a mere local affair that has cropped out in different places without reference to any organized combination with one grand center.

The workings of the Klans over all the Southern country show more conclusively than any amount of subterfuge on the part of the leaders, that one common tie binds them all; that one common interest actuates them; that one common end is to be accomplished. The oath differs slightly in phraseology in different localities, to accommodate the varied circumstances under which it is administered, and with a view to greater concealment--the words "Unknown Multitude," "Invisible Empire," and "White Brotherhood" being substituted in North and South Carolina; the words "Union and Young Men's Democracy," in Georgia and Mississippi; and the words "Knights of the White Camelia," in Louisiana and Texas and other States.

THE SECOND OR SUPREME DEGREE.