The Sweetwater forerunner. [volume] (Sweetwater, Tenn.) 1867-1869, 1868-08-06
Governors Message.

GOVERNORS message.
The Governors Message to the called
Session of the Legislature, will be found
In full, with the exception of some cor
respondence.
Gentlemen Of The Senate aud House
Of Representatives H.
The Constitutional provision, author
izing me to convene you in extraordinary
session, makesit my duty to state to you
the purposes for which you have been con-
vened, and at the same time limits you in
your acts of legislation to the business
for which you have been called together
At your session of last winter, by large
majOrities in both Houses, you repealed
what was known as the militia law. l ac-
cOrdingly paid off the militia and disband-
ed them, so that for the last ten months
there have been no State troops at my
disposal. As members of the Legislature,
you were assured by leading Conservatives
in their respective counties, and doubly
assured by the leading rebel journals of
the State, there would be no necessity for
any troops whatever, and that law and Or
der would be strictly observed. 1t turns
out that the rebellious elements of the
State were at that time secretly arming
themselves and perfecting military or
ganlzation known as the Kuklux Khan,
composed of ex-rebel soldiers and those
who were in sympathy with them; thus
violating their parole at the time of their
surrender, and violating the laws of the
State, and plotting and planning mischief
in every respect. These men have been
arming and organizing for year past,
with an eye to the overthrow of the State
Government, and, ultimately, to carrying
it in the Presidential election. They have
known, as we'll as the political leaders and
bad men who have prompted their action,
that the President of the United States
was bitterly hostile to tie men and meas
ures Of the present State Government,
and would readily favor q movement that
would overthrow both. They have been
confident, and have so expressed thqma
selves, that the President would give
them, as revolutionists, such aid by the
disposition of troops, and changes in this
military department, as would insure them
an easy victory; and some of them have
been SO indiscreet as openly to boast of
this. Their schemes have involved the
overthrow of the existing State Govern
ment, the abolition of colored suffrage,
the immediate enfranchisement, under the
revolutionary constitution, of every rebel
who fought to destroy the Government,
and wiping from the statue books of all
the wholesome and patriotic laws enacted
since April, 1865.
n II
This dangerous organization of ex-reb-
els now rami6es almost every part of the
eleven States that once constituted the
Southern Confederacy, and has already
grown into a political engine of depression
so powerful and aggressive as to call forth
in opposition several notable military or
ders. Organized upon the same basis,
and having the same dark designs in view,
that found fit elimination in Booths
assassination of Abraham Lincoln, it
works in secret, mid signs, symbols and
passwords, Matching plots to scatter an
archy and permanent disorder wherever
it may have an existence. The influential
portion of the rebel press in the South hail
its advent as propitious circumstance.
Of its purposes | need only extract from
the constitution of one of the clubs of its
order, captured by the police at Memphis,
the following declaration:
The object of this organization is for
the purpose of protecting the people of
the South from the band of murderers
and robbers now preying upon them, even
to the last resort-assassination-and we
pledge OURSELVES one to the other that
nothing shall be allowed to deviate us from
this noble object. a.
Here we have assassination declared as
legitimate object of this lawless clan.
That it is equal to its purposes is exempli-
fed in the assassinations already commit
ted in our own State and other Southern
States. I recommend, most emphatical-
ly, that these organized bands of assassins
and robbers be declared outlaws by spec
ial legislation, and punished with dealt
wherever found. n
call upon members to speak and vo
in the Halls of Legislation as they the
selves and their constituents have spok
to me in private letters and petitions ca
ing for the militia to protect them
their persons and property. True, it VI
take money to furnish a military for,
but loyal men residing in rebellious cou