CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



183 



they cannot be denied any more than you can 

 deny the rebellion itself." 



Mr. Hill, of Georgia, said : "I was disposed, 

 when it was proposed, to vote for this resolu- 

 tion ; and I am not averse to doing it yet. I 

 supposed the object of the resolution to be 

 what it purports to be to obtain information 

 of the exact condition of the late insurrection- 

 ary States. That condition is but imperfectly 

 exhibited to the Senate by the testimony that 

 has been brought here by a very important 

 committee who have been examining into the 

 subject of late. 



" I have my own impression as to what is 

 the state of affairs in Georgia generally. I 

 have very strong convictions upon my mind 

 they may be erroneous, but I do not think they 

 are as to the existence of any extensive or- 

 ganization in that State akin to the Ku-klux. 

 If there be such an organization, it has certainly 

 been kept wonderfully secret. It does not oc- 

 cur to me that there can be ten thousand of 

 the citizens of Georgia, or five thousand, held 

 together by a sort of esprit de corps for the 

 purpose of committing wrongs, acts of law- 

 lessness upon defenceless individuals, without 

 having some common centre, some concert. 

 It is difficult to see how any body of men en- 

 gaged in any pursuit, whether it be laudable 

 or otherwise, in any extended State like that, 

 could carry on their operations successfully 

 without having some common centre from 

 which went forth orders that were to be obeyed 

 and respected. Hence it occurs that even 

 among so valuable an association of men as 

 are the Masons and it is so with most reli- 

 gious denominations, etc. they find it neces- 

 sary, for the dissemination of the great truths 

 and principles they would inculcate, to have 

 a common place of meeting, where they con- 

 fer with each other. 



" I do not think that in the State of Georgia 

 there has ever been a State meeting on this 

 subject. There may have been in a town or 

 in some hamlet, some little insignificant local- 

 ity ; but I have no idea that there has ever 

 been a great Ku-klux convention assembled in 

 the State of Georgia. I do not believe any 

 such thing. I have heard of outrages, of crimes 

 that were very deplorable and very similar to 

 those detailed in the testimony of the North 

 Carolina witnesses, as having occurred in 

 Georgia. Some of them at the time seemed 

 too shocking to be believed, too lawless to be 

 credited ; but these instances were not general, 

 and they were limited in their extent ; they 

 were confined to a few counties ; and I do not 

 think there is any general spirit of lawlessness 

 abroad in that State. 



" I surely have no objection, indeed I would 

 prefer, that intelligent gentlemen appointed 

 from the two Houses of Congress should visit 

 Georgia, travel over the State, even if what 

 was predicted by a distinguished member of 

 the other House should be the result, namely, 

 that they would be treated with such excessive 



kindness by everybody they met that it would 

 tend to dissipate the idea that there were law- 

 less men there. If so, very well. I hope they 

 will be met in that way. They certainly will 

 be by myself and by my neighbors if they 

 should come in the direction I live. I will 

 welcome them, and I believe the people of that 

 region will ; and in a work of mere inquiry to 

 ascertain how much of wrong, how much of 

 lawlessness exists in the State, I am of the 

 opinion decidedly, that a very overwhelming 

 majority of the people of Georgia will see no 

 impropriety in it." 



Mr. Casserly, of California, said: "When 

 this resolution for a committee of investigation 

 was in the Senate, before it went to the House 

 of Representatives, I voted for it. I voted for 

 it cheerfully. I did not then notice the provi- 

 sion that the committee might from time to 

 time report during the recess. Had I noticed 

 it, I am not certain that I should have been 

 restrained from voting for the resolution. There 

 appeared to be at that time a sort of era of 

 good feeling in the Senate on the general sub- 

 ject of the alleged outrages in the South. There 

 were many circumstances which led me to the 

 opinion, or at least the hope, that the majority 

 here did really desire a candid and fair inves- 

 tigation, for the purpose of ascertaining the 

 facts just as they are in the South in regard to 

 the alleged disorders, and that upon facts so 

 ascertained the Senate would then proceed to 

 determine whether any legislation was neces- 

 sary, and, if so, what legislation should be had, 

 according to the exact exigency and within 

 the limits of the Constitution. 



"Sir, I voted for the resolution. It went 

 to the House. A delay ensued there. A change 

 without any sufficient cause meantime came 

 over Congress. Many things have since oc- 

 curred in this body in respect to the general sub- 

 ject of the condition of the South. Not one 

 thing occurred that did not more and more 

 shake my confidence in the action of the Sen- 

 ate, not one thing that did not disappoint my 

 expectations. Everything that happened con- 

 curred to satisfy me how grievous was the mis- 

 take as to the purposes of the Senate under 

 which I voted for the new committee of in- 

 quiry. The last lingering shred of hope was 

 rent away from me yesterday when the frank, 

 manly offer made by the Senator from Ohio 

 (Mr. Thurman) on behalf of the Democratic 

 minority in the Senate was rejected almost 

 with contempt by a nearly unanimous party 

 vote of the Senate. What was that offer ? It 

 was upon the ground that the Democratic party 

 here has never been disposed to excuse or even 

 to connive at any disorders in the South, and 

 that it was always for any honest investigation 

 of them, however searching or unfriendly ; that 

 we did not object to the resolution of the Sen- 

 ator from Ohio (Mr. Sherman), in so far as it 

 undertook to provide for a reference of the 

 subject to the Judiciary Committee with in- 

 structions to report by till ; that our objection 



