The weekly standard., 1870-08-03
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
RALEIGH, July 26, 1870.
TIE HONORABLE r. NJ. PEARSON,
Mig Justice Of the Supreme Court

To TIE HONORABLE r. NJ. PEARSON,
| shig Justice Of the Supreme Court
| Of North Carolina.
Sill have had the honor to receive, by
the hands of the Marshal of the Supreme
Cout, copy of your Opinion in the matter
Of A. G. Moore; and the Marshal has in
formed me of the writ in his hands for the
bodj of said Moore, now in the custody of
my subordinate officer, Col. George W. Kirk.
Ihave declared the Counties of Alamance
ant, Caswcll in state Of insurrection, and
haye taken military possession of them.
This your Honor admits had the power to
! do under the Constitution and laws" And
not only this, "but to do all things nec-
ess.ry to suppress the insurrection," includ-
ing the power to ARREST all suspected per-
sons" in the aforementioned Counties
Your Honor has thought proper also to
declare that the citizens of the Counties of
Alamance and Caswell are insurgents, as the
result of the Constitutional and lawful action
ofthe Executive, and that, therefore, you will
not issue the writ for the production of the
body of Moore to any of the men of the
said Counties that " the posse comitatus
4 must come from the County where the writ
is to he executed" and that any other
means would be illegal.
have official and reliable information
that in the Counties above named, during
the last twelve months, not less than one
hundred persons, in the peace of God and
the State,n have been taken from their
homes and scourged, mainly if not entirely
on account of their political opinions that
eight murders have been committed, in
cluding that of State Senator, on the same
account; that another State Senator has
been compelled from fear for his life, to
make his escape to distant State have
reason to believe that the governments ofthe
said Counties have been mainly if not en-
tirely in the hands of men who belong to
the Kuklux Klan, whose members have per
petrated the atrocities referred TO- and that
the County governments have not merely
omitted to ferret out and bring to justice
those of this Kan who have thus violated
the law, but that they actually shielded
them from arrest and punishment. The
State judicial power in the said Counties,
though in the hands of energetic, learned
and upright men, has not been able to
bring criminals to justice: indeed, it
is my opinion, based on facts that have
come to my knowledge, that the life of
the Judge whose duty it is to ride the cir
cult to which the said Counties belong, has
not been safe, on account of the hatred en-
tertained towards him by the Klan referred
to, because of his wish and purpose to bring
said criminals to justice For he it known
to your Honor that there is a wide spread
and formidable secret organization in this
State, partly political and partly social in its
objects; that this organization is known,
first, as "The Constitutional Union Guard ~
secondly, as e The White Brotherhood,"-
thirdly, as g" The In0isible Empire THAT
the members of this organization are united
by oaths which ignore or repudiate the Or
dinary oaths or obligations that rest upon
all other citizens to respect the lawsand to up,
hold the government; that these oaths incul
cate hatred by the white against the coiorcd
| people of State; that the members of this
Klan are irreconcilably hostile to the great
| principle of political and civil equality, on
| which the government of this State has
been reconstructed that these Klans. meet
| in secret, in disguise, with arms, in uni
| form of certain kind intended to conceal
their persons and their horses, and to
| terrify those whom they assault or among
whom they move; that they hold their
camps in secret places, and decree judg-
mcnt against their peaceablc fellow-citizcns,
from mere intimidation to scourgings, mutt
lations and murder, and that certain persons
of the Klan are deputed to execute these
| judgments; that when the members cf this
| Klan are arrested for violations of law, it is
most III Otildll DlllS OI lQQlCLmenC
against them, and still more difficult to con-
vict them, first; because some of the mem
bers or their sympathizers are almost always
on the grand and petit juries, and secondly,
because witnesses who are members or
sympathizers unblushingly commit perjury
to screen their confederatcs and associates
in crime that this Klan, thus constituted
and having in view the objects referred to,
is very powerful in at least twenty-five Coun-
ties of the State, and has had absolute con-
troll for the last twelve months of the Coun
ties of Alamance and Caswel.
Under these circumstances would have
been recreant to duty and faithless to my
oath, if had not exercised the power in
the several Counties which your Honor has
been pleased to say have exercised Consti
tutionally and lawfully; especially as, since
October 1868, have repeatedly, by procla-
nations and by letters. invoked public
opinion 10 repress these evils; and warned