New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-10-17
Il" e e IL ~
On the Ku-KIux.
Comments of the New York Euening
Post on the Speech Of Mr.. Greeley at
Cory, Pennsylvania, Sept. 25, 1872.
AN ORGAN OUT OF TUNE.

Greeley must either stop speaking, or
keep his organ in tune. While he was tell
ing his audience at Cory, Wednesday, that
he was earnestly in favor of the ku. klux
legislation, not merely as constitutional, but
as necessary and right, his eleventh hour
defender here, the World, was printing for
its readers wholesale denuuciation of it.
Greeley, after describing the condition with
which the Government had to deal in its eff
forts to establish peace at the South, said 4;
"Look at the difficulties and obstacles to
be overcome. Not first in point of view,
but of urgence, was what we called the Ku
Klux outrages of the South. Certain per-
sons, mainly open rebels, conspired together
and formed themselves into companies or
organizations of some kind, and in hideous
DISCUSSES paraded the country-I mean GER
tain portions of the Southern country
abusing and maltreating innocent, quiet
people, mainly black men. | do not mean
to say that there were not excuses and pro-
vocations for these outrages-there were.
But | say there is no justification for any
such conduct as that. The pretense gen
orally was that what they called the carpet.
bag governments were abominable. That
is probably true, but it is no excuse for
hauling quiet people out of their beds at
midnight, and subjecting them to all manner
of indignities. So, then, | said, | did not
recommend particular or extreme measures,
but l said, no doubt, that it is the duty of
the States to protect their citizens respec-
But suppose they do not, or cannot, or will
nf he ,aon1a apt;t1aA to
perfect protection. If the State govern
ments will not give it there must be power
somewhere that will give it. We look after
q man who is not more than half citizen
whom a foreign Government Expresses, and
all the power of this great nation is put to
work to protect that man. He may, per-
haps, have only declared his intentions to
become citizen, but all the cannon and all
the force we can command is employed for
his protection. Our Government must have
the power to protect its own people at home
as we'll as abroad. So said year ago last
spring. Let the President tell US what sort
of legislation he needs to put down those
Ku-Klux, and will back him up to the full
extent. He said what he needed. Laws
were passed, and after all they did the work.
You have not heard of any serious Ku- Klux
outrages since these acts were passed.
Since these acts were passed, year and a
half ago, nobody has heard of any serious
outrages there, though there have been trials
in one or two States, especially in North
Carolina, yet they are trials for offenses
committed two or three years ago, long be-
fore the act was passed. So the work was
done. The Ku-Klux conspiracy was crush
ed out by act of Congress, and although
these outrages occurred in a very narrow
district of territory, they discredited and
damaged all the Southern people who may
be suspected ofany sympathy with those who
made the outrages."
Here we have as complete justification
of the Ku-Klux acts as it is possible to
make. We are told, first, that there was a
cause for them in the organized attempts of
burglars and assassins to disturb the peace
and violate the domestic sanctities Of the
citizen second, that the State laws were
insufficient to protect the injured, and that
Congress was not only auth orized but bound
to intervene; third, that he, Mr.. Greeley,
was prepared to concede to the President
whatever powers he might ask as needful
to put down these outrages; fourth, that
the laws as they were passed were abso.
lutely efficient; they did the work and the
Ku-Klux miscreants were extinguished.
That, be it observed, is Mr.. Greeley
view of the matter, not ours, and view
that he has persistently maintained from
the beginning. His nominal pledges to the
doctrine of decentralization as expressed
in the Cincinnati platform, do not hinder
him from indicating the most extreme use
of the Federal power that has, perhaps,
ever been made in our experience. He was
and is willing to confer upon the executive
arm of the Government any power that
it might demand in order to interfere in
the States, and to do the duty which the
the States are unable or unwilling to do. We
know how earnestly all the Democrats and
| several Republicans protested against this
intervention as unconstitutional and revolu-
tionary, and how it was contended that il
would be best in the end to letthe Southern
communities work out their own salvation
but Mr.. Greeley then, as now, trampled
down the objection with his usual contempt
and scorn.
But what says the World, writing doubt
less at the very moment that its oracle was
speaking, and on the same subject? Gree
ley Whom it accuses of substituting his
own personality for the platform, which he
quite ignores,) dwells so much more ve-
hemently upon amnesty" than its appa.
rent importance warrants, because he means
more than amnesty, he means to denounce
generally the legislation by which the South
has been visited. 1t says;
at is not our purpose to criticise Mr..
Greeley, but to interpret him. When he
insists so strenuously and so necessarily on
the duty of amnesty, we must look rather
to the spirit than the letter of his patriotic
and truly magnanimous speeches. The let
ter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. The
disabilities imposed by the fourteenth
amendment, which the President cannot
remove, and the KuKlux legislation which
clothes him with unlimited discretion. are
conceived in the same hostile, unforgiving
spirit towards the Southern people. The
u-Klux laws make an invidious distinction
between the Northern and Southern States.
They were enacted with sole reference to
the South, rs an engine of domineering,
revengeful insolence. They are badge OF
servitude and inferiority. The theory OF
the Constitution is, that all the States are
| equal that they are competent, except in
| extraordinary emergencies, to maintain
order and enforce justice within their re-
spective local jurisdictions; that in those
rare conjunctures when domestic insurrec-
tons become too formidable to be subdued
| by State authority, the State governments
are the proper and exclusive judges of the
necessity of Federal aid, which can be given
only when they apply for it. This doctrine
is conceded in its application to the North.
crn, but insolently denied in respect to the
Southern States, putting the latter in a con-
dition oc humiliatng thraldom, and venting
upon them the vindictive passions stirred
up by the war. The spirit of amnesty re-
quires that they should be relieved from
this arrogant, revengeful domination, and
restored to that position Of equality to which
they are entitled by the Constitution, and
which is due to them as consequence of
restored brotherhood"
Mr.. Greeley, we opine, will not be thank.
full for an interpreter that renders him re-
sponsible for the approval of insolent, OPP