Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1868-04-18
The Ku-KluX Klan,

From the Richmond Examiner
1t is now very evident that this 'Ku-
Klux-Klan'' is not meaningless Merry
Andrew organization, but that under its
cap and bells it hides a purpose IS reso-
lutte, noble and heroic as that which
Brutus concealed beneath the mask of
well dissembled idiocy. 1t is rapidly or
ganizing wherever the insolent negro,
the malignent white traitor to his race
and the infamous squatter are plotting
to make the South utterly unfit for the
residence of the decent white man. 1t
promises, we hope, to bring into the field
for the defence of our lives, liberty,
and roperty-hundreds of thousands of
those heroic men who have been tried
and indurated by the perils, dangers and
sufferings of military service. 1t is no
doubt, an organization which is thor
oughly loyal to the Federal Constitu-
ton, but which will not premit the peo-
pie of the South to become the victims
of negro rule. 1t is purely defensive,
and for the protection of the white race
and has been rendered necessary by the
organization of thousands of secret ne
gro leagues, whose members have been
stimulated to carry out the work of
disfranchisement of the whites by the
promises Of plllage and wholesale cou.
tiscation.
If such is the purpose and real object
of the new secret society which is SO rap
idly increasing in numbers in Tennessee,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North
Care lima and the other Southern States,
it VIII arrest the progress of that secret
conspiracy which has for its object the
establishment of negro domination.
The first duty Of 4 people whose liber-
ty and property are menaced as ours are
by abandoned apostates, greedy squat
tcrs, and insolent negroes, is TO organize
with such promptitude and stern rcsolu-
tion as to strike terror into the guilty
souls Of the secret negro societies and
their delegates III the "Convention," and
the next will be lesson to these crlml-
nails which will teach them that men
who for nearly four years delied the
armies Of powerful government, will
not submit to political outlawry and ne
gro and squatter domination, and to dis
honor and degradation in hundred
loathsome forms, in State which they
have made famous by their great and
many virtues, and where the white race
has reigned supreme since it was wrested
from the hands of a people superior in
every brave and manly quality to those
which God has branded with marks of
intellectual and physicist inferiority to
all other races of men. We prefer an
open organization hike that which exists
in this State, to any other; but whether
secret or open, that form of organization
which will most effectually protect the
white men OF Virginia and Of the South
and prevent negro rule and defeat The
desi gns Of the bummers and squattels, is
the one which will most commend itself
to our approval. And if secret organi-
cations, formed to sustain the ConStitu-
ton, and restore Fpeace and order, and
suppress violence, wrong and outrage,
shall be preferred by the people Of Nir-
ginia to any other, the lawless adven-
turers and vile emmissaries who have
kindled the baleful fires OF incendiarism,
negro hate, and a war of races in 500 Sc
cret Oath-bound negro leagues in this
State, will have no right to complain.