New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-05-02

On Saturday week the President transmit
ted the following message to the House of
Representatives in answer to the resolution
of the Oath of January last:
have the honor to submit the following
| accompanied by the report of the Attorney
General, to whom the resolution was re-
fered:
Representations having been made to me
that in certain portions of North Carolina a
condition of lawlessness and terror existed,
L requested the then Attorney General (Mr.
Akerman) to visit the State, and, after per-
sonal examination, to report to me the facts
in relation to the subject. On the 10th of
October last he addressed a communication
from South Carolina, in which he stated that
in the counties of Spartanburg, York, Ches-
ter, Union, I.aurens, NewbeTy, Fairfield,
Lancaster, and Chesterfield, there were COM
bmations for the purpose of preventing the
free political action of citizens who were
| friendly to the Constitution and Government
of the United States, and of depriving the
emancipated class of the equal protection of
the laws. These combinations embrace at
least two-thirds of the active white men of
these counties, and have the sympathy and
countenance of the majority of the other
third. They are connected with similar COM
bimatiOns lin other counties and States, and
no doubt are part of grand system of GRIM
inal associations pervading most of the South
ern States. The members are bound to ODE
dience and secrecy by oaths which they are
| taught to regard as of higher obligation than
the lawful oaths taken before civil magis-
trates; they are organized and armed; they
effect their objects by personal violence,
often extending to murder; they terrify wit
nesses; they control juries in the State
courts, and sometimes in the courts of the
United States. Systematic perjury is one of
the means by which the prosecution of the
members is defeated. From information
given by officers of the State and of the
United States, and by credible private citi-
Zens, am justified in affirming that the in
stances of criminal violence perpetrated by
these combinations within the last twelve
months in the above-named counties could be
reckoned by thousands. 1 received informal
ton of similar import from various other
sources, among which were the joint COM
mittee of Congress ON Southern Outrages,
the officers of the State, the military officers
of the United States on duty in South Caro-
lima, the United States Attorney and mar
shals and other civil officers of the Govern
ment, repentant and abjuring members of
those unlawful organizations, persons spe-
cially employed by the Department of Justice
W uctcCG thC CHiICu oIdtCo,
and from other credible sources. Most, if
not all, of this information, except what
derived from the Attorney General, came to
me orally, and was to the effect that the said
counties were under the sway of the powerful
combination popularity known as the Ku-Klux
Khan, the objects of which were by force and
terror to prevent all political action not in
accord with the views of the members to
deprive the colored citizens of the right to
bear arms and of the right to free ballot, to
suppress schools in which colored citizens
were taught, and to reduce the colored people
to a condition closely akin to slavery; that
| these combinations were organized and
armed, and had rendered the local law inef-
fectual to protect the classes whom they de-
sired to Cypress; that they had perpetrated
many murders and hundreds of crimes of
minor degree, all of which were UNPUBLISHED,
and that witnesses could not safely testify in
court there, unless the more active members
were placed under restraint.
U. S. GRANT.
Erecmice Mansion, April 10, 1872.