The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-04-14
DEFENSIVE SECRET ORGANIZATIONS.

There is nothing SO certain to generate sus-
picion as bad conscience. "The thief doth
fear each bush an officer" The tyrant is prone
to construe the most commonplace looks and
motions into signs of conspiracy and incipient
rebellion. The yet UNPUBLISHED malefactor
feels or fancies that he moves in the shadow
ola pursuing retribution; and hence walks Gin
fear and dread, as one who knows some fright,
full fiend doth close behind him tread" 1t is
quite natural, therefore, that those Northern
men who have been organizing political des-
potism, commercial ruin, and social misery in
the South, whether as military satraps or as
partisan conspirators, incendiaries and plum
derers, should suspect that they were sur
rounded and menaced by mysterious societies
of counterplotters and avengers. This is the
explanation of the frantic cutlery which they
have raised against mythical organization
called by them the ''Ku Klux Klan," and of
which nothing is positively known by the
public except this name which they gave it in
their denunciations. The men who have been
spreading through the South secret and armed
leagues of the worst elements of both the white
and black populations, in order to seize upon
the local governments, plumber their treasu-
ries and consume the substance of the honest
and industrious masses-these men, in the
midst of such tokens of patience and resigna-
ton on the part OF the Southern people
as It has been touching to contemplate,
become the prey of a retributive suspi-
cion, and the Ku-Klux-Klan, as depicted
by them, happens to be the eldest born of this
parent Of countless brood of terrors. 1t is
thus that criminal consciousness anticipates
uItirnate damnation.
Yet it would not be strange, on the other
hand, if secret society, under some name,
were organized in the South, in such period
as this, simply as a defensive expedient
against the atrocious Vaccinations which i'm
peril every honest interest and useful institu-
ton in the country. These Vaccinations Gen.
Meade, and other military officers, who have
issued orders for suppressing the fabulous
operations of the Ku-Klux-Klan, have per-
mitted to proceed without check and with
perfect impunity. The right of self-defenss
| is sacred and indefeasible, and if no Other
method of exercising it is left but that Of Sc
cret organization, the adoption of such ME
thod is, beyond all question, as justifable al
| it is expedient. At the same time it is not t.
be disputed that secret combination for othe
objects than private enjoyment or charitable
benefit, is essentially dangerous, and that it
existence anywhere is always to be deplorec
as an oninous fact. But, whatever may re
suit from this kind of organization, the re
sponsibility for the whole evil ought, in jus
tice, to be carried home to the radical ennis
saries in the South, and to. their abetters il
the North. For it is they who commence
war upon Southern society by means OF secre
concerting, arming and terrorizing; and if i
this way they have provoked counterorgan
cation, such a response, while deplorable in
deed. is quite as blameless as it is instinctiv
and human.