The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1871-10-26
Secret Political Organizations.

| on this Su0Ject IN the annexed pOluooo aricie :
We have omitted no proper occasion TO ex-
press our hostility to secret political associations
They are repugnant to the theory of Republi-
can government, and at variance with every
idea of social or individual independence and
security. They can only have their origin in 9
demoralized condition of public feeling and
the popular sentiment which develops, origi-
mates or tolerates them is, invariably the result
of a corresponding governmental decadence
The Union League owed its existence to q
ibigoted, fanatical and infuriated temper, and
was the offspring of that tyrannical policy of
Lincoln and Seward, which broke down all the
safeguards of personal liberty, which allowed
no independence of thought, and which could
''ring little bell" at the imperial centre and
order the arrest and incarceration. of a citizen
in California, on the shores of the Pacifc-a
system which has gone on and on, in its des-
potic strides, until it has eliminated in that
legislation of the Congress of the United States,
which places life and limb at the mercy of in
famous spies and detectives, of malignant par
tisan judges and of packed juries. The Ku
Klux organization, whose invasior5 of law and
of individual rights are 80 greatly to be depreca-
ted and deplored, could never have found lodg-
ment in any community or country, not afiict-
ed with gigantic social evils, the consequence
of perverted, partial and oppressive govern
ment. B..
1t is proper, when brought face to face with
these social and political disorders, to trace
them to their fountain-head. Physical disease or
mental distemperament cannot be thoroughly
and successfully cured, except by going to the
root of the malady and removing the cause
Had there been no purpose to prescribe men
for opinions sake and to organize reign Of
political terrorism there had been no League.
Had there been no League, the offspring of
governmental tyranny, which, like all other
unchecked disorders, took on more malignant
phases with the progress of time, there could
have been no Ku Klux. Had the League not
banded ignorant dupes into midnight conspira-
cy against intelligence, virtue and property
had it not been converted into shelter for
thieves and plunderers had it not have licensed
arson, assassination and rape; had it not have
turned lose upon the impoverished and humil-'
lated community Of the South horde of de-
PRAYED carpet-bag adventurers to eat out their
scanty substance, and fill public stations with
imbeciity, corruption and malignity, and had
not all this been done under the sanction of the
dominant and ruling power in the land, there
had never been counter organization or any
concerted attempt to go outside of the laws of
the country. We denounce all such associa-
tions-they should be put down and throttled;
but, after all, the most effective remedy is to
restore healthy tone to the life-blood of So
ciety-p -paternnl, Just, generous gogermnaent
All history sustains our views. That thor
ough student of history, Sir Walter Scott, who
interwove the charms of his fiction with such
profound and sagacious reflections on society,
morals and government, speaking, in one of
his works, ("Anne of Geierstein," of the veh-
miquo institution, the celebrated secret and in
quisitorial association, which, in the fifteenth
century, spread over Germany, makes the fol-
lowing philosophic observations, which apply
with striking and pungent force to the present
times "Such an. institution" says that great
man, "1could only prevail at time when ordi;
nary means of justice sCere crcludsd By the hand
Of powcr, and when, in order to bring the guilty
to punishment, it required all the influence and
authority of such confederacy. In no other
country than one erposed to every species Of feu-
d1 tyranny, and deprived of every ordinary
mode of attaining justice or redress, could such
a system have taken root and aourishedP