The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1872-06-10
"Ths Kuklux consusacy. ~

ever, find the work done SO wen " .'is's ~.
r,er.. TournaI of Louisville, Kentucky, NAV NAV
we take advantage OF its labors, ana COPY
~. c,1Io,,;ro article from its columns. ~,
may crafty capsious persons who have taken
,hc hit in their mouths and run off upon the
.rr,tic alternative Of preferIing GRANT to
GREELEY to say that GREELEY favored the, ku-
klux law; but they cannot lay, at GREELrYss
door any sins such as are involved m the ku-
kiux prosecutions and general crHeltles I'D
the South done under General GRANTS di-
rection. The Liberal Republican congress
sional leaders were against The kukltix laws.
Whether il Is wiser to associate with GKANT,
who has administered those laws, than win
those able constitutional lawyers who OPP
posed them, we leave it to the captious south
ern gentlemen aforesaid to answer. ,s q. r
Furthermore, for some week or more the
GRANT leaders of Congress have been en- en-
deayoring to press through Congress bs at'l'
fee the military aud other measures, IN
Guiding The suspension Of hdbeds corpus,
| 10 enable General GRANT to continue inc
! pcrserrtions and miserics which Mr.. BECK
portrays. while the Liberal Republicans are
| shielding the South by opposing these cruel
straesems and by standing mantul'y and
brayely between them and the tyrant seeking
to harass them and carry woe to their very
hcartl,-stoncs. But TO the extract from the
| CouJ'fc,-J0arndf:
MIR. Beck, Of Kentucky. is Il thorn in the
side of the Radicals. He has done, perhaps,
| more than any other Democratic mcnlher 10
| expose the wrong-dciDgs OF Congress ana
| the rascalitics Of the Administration. Inc
other day MIR. Beck made speech OF il:ili an
hour in the House of Representatives, IN
which he handled the Radicals wlthost
gloves for their proposition to extend the ku-
Sluy law until after the presidential election.
He charged that the bill was withheld, al
though the KukluX Committee has met from
| time to time. until the session is about to.
| close. in order that such statements aud
speeches as its advocates choose to make or
TO have printed in the Congressional Globe
NAV 90 to the country unrciutcd. s-f
The following extract will give some idea
of the bold and defiant tone of the gentleman
from Kentucky: #.
"Now, when investigation is impossible,
when debate under the rules is cut of, ut the
very heel of the session, you come in, and in
order to make political capital and hold des-
potic power, to destroy the rights of a free
people, to put bayonetS over them, to put
supervisors. over the elections, you raise the
cry of kukluN upon the statements OF your
spies, pimps, and inlorlners, and try to put
eleven sovereign States under the heel of a
military dictator. Thanks TO the Democratic
party and the patriotic Iucn on the other side
of the House who stood by us, that cannot.
be done; you may call Congress together
again to do it, your President may lush you
TO do it if he dares, and nothing but disgrace
and failure will follow the effort" ts..
The Administration has thus far been de-
fcated in its purpose to force this bill, so just
ly animadyerted upon, through the House OF
Representatives, but it will require the ut
most vigilance on the part of Dir. Beck and
those associated with him to prevent it from
being put through before the adjournment.
The measure is regarded by Grant and the
Radical leaders as Of such consequence that
they are afraid to go into the Presidential
election without it. Some of them have even
been candid enough to give expression to
their conviction that General Grant will be
beaten unless it is passed. IF the bill had
been introduced carly in the session, Mr..
Beck and other members would have had the
opportunity not only of denouncing the
statements or which the act is founded rs
false in whole and in part, but might have
demanded an Investigation which could not
have been avoided. and which would have
placed the matter in its true light before the
country. J..
Even us the case stands, should the bill
pass, the country will pretty we'll understand
the why and the wherefore oft. For many
months past not even the imagination OF
Radical newspaper correspondents has sue
| cecdcd in Matching anything in the way e
southern outragcS, and there is a very gen
eral impression among the people that for
some time thets0utlern States have been less
uljeet to disturbances tlanany other part of
the Unior. Then, too, the investigation which,
has already been had of an alleged kul>luX
conspiracy was such us TO prove that what
ever trouble existed was attributable to the
carpct-basgers and scalawags whom Congress
and the President constituted as rulers over
the South. There were~eleyen States Gnu
bl,ccd ia the investigation Of this pretended
'klkluN conspiracy and Of these five were
acquitted by the committee without exam
nation. Mr.. Beck remarked in this connee-
ton: ,a. ..-.. =, s.,--,,.ss.,..&s ~ ........
"The minority of the committee wanted
10 20 to those States and investigate the con-
dition of things there; but by strict party
vote (thc record of which Is given in the MI
iiority report the majority, upona call Of the
yeas and nays, voted down the proposition,
and would not allowtls to go there. Why !!
| Because they knew there was nothing i'm all
| those five great States TO authorize even an
! investigation into their condition, while the
conduct of the rulers who had been placed
over them by Congress Was disgrace to the
civilization of the age, which they did not
intend to allow us to devclope and expose
Half the people and bali the States, there
fore, stand acquitted 10y the confession of the
majority themselves. Can you imagine con-
spiracy in eleven States when half the people
and one-half the territorial area stand acquit.
ted, and where il is not even pretended that
a kukluX organization exists in any one of
them? 1t is simply ridiculous to assert such
u proposition.
slow is it in the other six States-North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Florida, and Mississippi? 1t is not even
pretended that out of more than 4sO coyu-
ties embraced in those States there ever was
Il klikluX organization in more than forty:
or not over ten per cent. of these remaining
Statesmen over five per cent. of the whole
was there anything looking like an orgal,isa.
tlon IN that state Of the ea,p ard even where
1t existed no nat has pretended that one
man ia twenty of all the people in tho few
counties where men have been seen in dis
sillse countenanced or endorsed 1t. or had
anything to do with II. Indeed, nearly all
this people opposed and denounced such
conduct when they could not suppress it.
so that, assuming the facts stated by the
majority IN their report to be true-ass,lming
facts to be as bad as they state them-less