The New York herald., 1871-03-20

regarded as fanatic, has resolution pending
before the Senate, alleging the subversion by
armed, disguised and lawless men-mainly
soldiers of the late rebel armes-of all civil
authority over large part Of the late insur-
rectionary States chat life and property
against these desperadoes are unsafe; that the
rights of citizens are denied to many that the
local courts are pow erless against organized
perjury to punish crime, and that the Judi
cary Committee, accordingly, be instructed
to report some remedial measure of legisla-
tion.
In an appeal to the Senate on Saturday last
in support of this resolution Mr.. Sherman,
quoting from the report of Mr.. Morton's Select
Committee on Southern Outrages, proceeded
TO show that the lawless dongs of the Southern
Ku Klux K!ans were startling and disgrace
to the civilization of the age; that these
marauders, mainly soldiers of the late rebel
armies have virtually taken up arms, in viola
ton Of the very liberal terms accorded them
by General Grant upon their surrender; that
the main object, as embodied in the test oath of
these organizations, is to prevent colored men
and others from exercising their political rights,
and that the members of these lawless bands
are bound to murder, rob and plunder under
the discipline prescribed by their former rebel
leaders. Mr.. Sherman declared that he did
not know of any organization in history which
for its atrocities could compare with this
These men committed their crimes in the
-, ,.i.l .soJ
Their number in North Carolina had been
stated at forty thousand, and they were GER
tainly not less than ten thousand.
In the single county of Rockingham, in that
State, sixty-two of their outrages had been
committed, including the hanging of colored
preacher at late hour of the night, in front
of the Court House, where, dangling from
tree, the body was found the next morning,
with paper pinned on it, bearing the inscrp
ton, "Beware, We guilty, both black and
white. X. X. X" Several days afterwards
a poor half idiotic negro, who had seen some
Of these men, was drowned by them to pre-
vent their detection by him. Thirty-eight
similar cases had occurred in the same neigh
borhood. In Alamance county band of
disguised men had taken colored man from
then compelled all the negroes in the neigh
borhood to swear they would never vote the
radical ticket. The killing of sheriff, it was
shown, had been previously agreed upon in
secret, and 50 on. and so on, to a catalogue of
outrages in North and South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and other
States, frightful to contemplate. Besides, the
Commissioner OF Internal Revenue reports
that it has become an exceedingly dangerous
duty TO attempt to collect the revenue in these
States, and says that in some instances revc-
nue. officers are compelled to fly for their
lives.
Can these things be true2 From the testi-
mony furnished us by our Raleigh cores
pondent in the pending impeachment trial of
Governor Holden, names, dates and places,
we cannot doubt that these things arc true
in regard to North Carolina. Touching these
outrages we presume that the Senate investi-
eating committee have substantially the same
evidence as that furnished on the Holden
negroes in South Carolina, Mississippi and
other Southern States, the local newspapers, in
their reports and commentaries, leave us in no
doubt except as to the exact causes of and
prcvocations to and parties concerned in these
disorders. These causes and provocations
and guilty parties and the underlying political
difficulties between these Ku Klux Klans on
the one side and the negroes and so-called
''scalawags" and ''carpet-baggers" on the
other can, perhaps, be correctly ascertained
| only through travelling Congressional inves-
| tigating committee like that proposed in the
! resolution lately passed by the House.
| According to Senator Sherman these Ku Klux
| Klans are secret political bands of midnight
marauders, whose main purpose is-by murder
and terrorism--to prevent the blacks from
| voting the radical ticket and so to demoralize
| the republican party South as to clear the
field f6f the democratic party. General Grant in
his last annual message broadly hinted at some
legislation in view of the suppression of free
elections in some of the Southern States by
means Of violence and intimidation.
1t is q fact that Southern reconstruction
has failed to win over to the republican party
the Southern white elements concerned in the
late rebellion. 1t is true, no doubt, that these
Ku Klux Klans are largely composed of the
rough riders Of the rebellion, demoraxod by
the war into moss troopers by profession. 1t
is also natural that these moss troopers,
reckless and ignorant, and full of their old
ideas Of the blacks, should be incensed against
them for joining the republicans, as ii is
natural that the blacks should mostly join the
party 10 which they are indebted for their
emancipation and their right of suffrage. Nor
was, nor Is accomplishing submission to be
expected from the lately dominant and dicta-