TJOTVEESAL AMNESTY THE KU-KLUX. 49 



ern Soiitli Cai-olina as well as I coxild if I were able to choose her 

 best men to help me, instead of her second-best." I am entirely of 

 that conviction. I believe it was a mistake, when you allowed a mil- 

 lion Confederates to vote for Members of Congress, to deny them 

 the right to vote for just such men as they preferred. I believe their 

 first-rate men would be safer and more useful in Congress than their 

 second-rate men — better for us and better for their Country. [Ap- 

 plause.] So I argued, because I so believed ; and still I say that, if 

 the men were allowed to represent the South who express the senti- 

 ment of the South — if the Toombses, Wises, and Wade Hamptons 

 had been allowed to go to Congi-ess, and liad been sent there four 

 years ago — the Republican pai'ty would have been a great deal 

 stronger and Reconstruction very much fui'ther advanced and more 

 certain than it is to-day. [Cries of " Bravo," and applause.] Why, 

 gentlemen, whenever one of these extreme men say anything, you 

 see it caught up and cariied all over the Union in the very jovirnals 

 that insist on keeping those men out of Congress and in positions 

 where their words carry with them the least possible weight. If 

 their words are so beneficial and pregnant to us, why not let them 

 speak where the whole country will heai' them ? [Applause.] 



Biit I have been asked, *' Are there any Ku-Klux down South ?" 

 Yes, gentlemen, there are. They didn't come up to me and tell me 

 they were Ku-Klux very often. They didn't undertake to perform 

 their delicate operations upon me. I should have had very much 

 more respect for them if they had. [Great laughter,] 



I am moved with profoimd disgust when I think of these men, 

 covering themselves with second-hand calico, masking their faces) 

 arming themselves to the teeth, and riding around to the cabins of 

 poor, harmless negroes, dragging them from their beds, and whipping 

 and maiming them until they are compelled to swear they will never 

 again vote the Republican ticket. I hold that to be a very coward- 

 ly procedure as well as a very base one ; and I hold it to be the duty 

 of the Government of the Union to oppose with all its power and all 

 its force every such execrable outrage as this. Do you tell me that 

 those men are liable to State laws for the assaults and batteries 

 they have committed ? I don't doubt it ; but I say they are also 

 in substance and purpose traitors to the Government, rebels against 

 its authority, and the most cowardly, skulking rebels ever known to 

 this or any other country. [Applavtse.] 



I hold our Government bound, by its duty of protecting our citi- 

 4 



