CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



199 



present moment impracticable, does the past 

 give such reason to apprehend such a state of 

 affairs as will render them impracticable, and as 

 will require this power to be lodged in the Pres- 

 ident for the protection of the public welfare ? 



" These inquiries open a very wide field of 

 investigation; but I do not propose to follow- 

 any of them at great length, nor can I take 

 them up in their order, as the testimony which 

 I shall consider will bear upon them all. 

 There was a time when it might have been 

 advisable to dwell upon the evidence establish- 

 ing the existence of the Ku-klux Klan, the 

 combination against which principally it is 

 well known this legislation was directed ; but 

 that time has passed. Its existence now stands 

 confessed. 



" The testimony taken by the joint commit- 

 tee clearly establishes that the same organiza- 

 tion, pursuing the same purposes and seeking 

 to accomplish them by the same means, has 

 existed, and been active since 1868, in the 

 States of North and South Carolina, Georgia, 

 Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. There can 

 be no reasonable doubt of its existence still in 

 Tennessee and in most of the other States 

 where it is for the present quiet, but ready to 

 act whenever it may be deemed necessary or 

 prudent to do so. Its recent character is bet- 

 ter fixed, however, by the evidence furnished 

 from the organization itself, evidence which 

 stamps it as one of the foulest blots upon the 

 civilization of this century. At the trials in 

 Columbia, South Carolina, the constitution of 

 the Ku-klux in that State was given in evi- 

 dence, having been found in possession of one 

 Samuel Brown, Esq., a man of wealth and 

 standing in York County, who was chief of a 

 klan, and is now expiating his offence in the 

 Albany penitentiary, sentenced upon his own 

 confession. The same constitution governed 

 the order in North Carolina, as is shown by 

 the testimony of David Schenck, Esq., a lead- 

 ing lawyer of Lincolnton, in that State, who 

 became a member of the order in 1868, and 

 says that in doing so he considered that he 

 was swearing to support the platform of the 

 convention that nominated Seymour and Blair 

 in New York. 



" Now, sir, as to the extent to which this 

 organization has prevailed : it is stated in the 

 views of the minority that it does not prevail 

 in more than forty counties in these States of 

 North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 

 Alabama, and Mississippi. Let me give you 

 the names of the counties in these States in 

 which these offences have been committed. 

 Outrages have been committed in North Car- 

 olina in the counties of Orange, Chatham, 

 Alamance, Lenoir, Harnett, Sampson, Caswell, 

 Guilford, Gaston, Lincoln, Moore, Rutherford, 

 Cleveland, and Catawba. 



" South Carolina. In the counties of Spar- 

 tanburg, York, Union, Chester, Abbeville, 

 Laurens, Fairview, Newberry, and Lancaster. 



" Georgia. In the counties of Jasper, Wal- 



ton, "White, Morgan, Jackson, Hancock, "Wil- 

 kinson, Washington, Cherokee, Greene, Mad- 

 ison, Pike, Whitefield, Habersham, Putnam, 

 Haralson, Warren, Richmond, Gwinnett, 

 Floyd, Glasscock, Chattooga, Dade, Clark, 

 Jefferson, Oglethrope, Walker, Appling, and 

 Columbia. 



"Alabama. In the counties of Blount, Cal- 

 houn, Chambers, Choctaw, Fayette, Greene, 

 Hale, Jackson, Jefferson, Lawrence, Lime- 

 stone, Macon, Madison, Marshall, Morgan, 

 Perry, Pickens, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, St. Clair, 

 Cherokee, Coosa, Lauderdale, Marengo, Talla- 

 poosa, and Walton. 



"Mississippi. In the counties of Chickasaw, 

 Kemper, Itawamba, Tishemingo, Prentiss, Lee, 

 Leake, Tippah, Union, Alcorn, Kemper, Lau- 

 derdale, Lincoln, Lowndes, Marshall, Monroe, 

 Noxubee, Oktibbeha, Pontotoc, and Winston. 



"Florida. In the county of Jackson alone 

 the evidence shows that within the last five 

 years there have been one hundred and fifty- 

 three homicides. 



"Here we have ninety-nine counties in all, 

 and this in all probability falls below the num- 

 ber. I have not had time to make a careful 

 examination of that part of the testimony at 

 the taking of which I was not personally pres- 

 ent, and have only inserted here the names 

 of those counties where offences are clearly 

 shown to have been committed. I have no 

 doubt there are more. I shall give presently 

 a summary of the offences committed in these 

 counties. 



"These facts bear upon the denial made, in 

 the views of the minority, of the extent of the 

 organization, of its political significance, or 

 of its having the countenance of any of the 

 respectable white people of the South. Each 

 of these may require a passing notice. 



"As to the numbers of the organization, the 

 fact that in York County the number was al- 

 most equal to the white voting population is 

 of itself startling, and when it is remembered 

 that about the same state of affairs existed in 

 the two adjoining counties, and to a large ex- 

 tent in other counties, it is evident that noth- 

 ing but the power of the General Government 

 is sufficient to restrain that organization in 

 that State. 



"Again, after the concession that General 

 Forrest knows so much more about the origin 

 of the organization than any other person, his 

 statement as to its numbers becomes impor- 

 tant. In 1868 he said there were forty thou- 

 sand in Tennessee and five hundred thousand 

 in the Southern States. The only correction 

 he made of that statement, in his letter written 

 to correct errors, was, that he believed there 

 were those numbers. His belief as the head 

 of that organization is significant, and equiva- 

 lent to the knowledge of other people. 



"The allegation that the order does not ex- 

 ist in more than forty counties is met by the 

 names of the counties of the several States 

 which I have already given. 



