The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1872-03-07
sKU-KLUX REPORTS.


/ Il STARTLING EXPOSURE
BYTHE DEMOCRATIC MEM
BERS OF THE COM1LITTEE
''NO People ever so Mercilessly
Robbed and Plundered."
The majority and minority reports
of the Ku-klux Committee have been
submitted to Congress. The reports
made several hundred pages, and the
accompanying evidence several thou
sand pages. The majority maintains
the existence of a formidable secret
political organization, who have com.
mitted great crimes, but admits that
some of this lawlessness has been pro-
voked from plundered and taK-rid-
den people by oppressive carpet-bag
| legislation; but at the same time adj
wise the most stringent acts of Con-
gress to put down the so-called ku-
KIux.
The minority report is signed by
Senators Bayard and Blair, and Rep
resentatives Beck, Cox, Van Trump.
Waddie, Hawkes., and Robinson. The
fact of outrages having been commit
ted is not denied, but the terrible
revelations of corruption and plunder-
ing on the part of the carpet-bag gov
ernments presents the fullest reasons
for and the cause of the disorders in
those States. We submit synopsis
oil the minority report, sent by tele-
graph.
THE EXTENT OF LAWLEsSNEss.
The minority of the Committee say
| that, although Tennessee was among
the States assigned to one of the SUBJ
committees, no evidence was attempt
ed to be taken to show any lawlessness
there. 1t follows, therefore, that five,
at least, of the eleven Southern States,
to wit, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas,
Louisiana and Arkansas, are free even
from suspicion of lawlessness on the
part of the people, whatever may be
the fact as regards their rulers. These
five states embrace greatly more than
half the territory and nearly half the
population of the eleven Southern
States, and it is hard to conceive how,
if political or other combinations ex-
listed for any general purpose, they
should be left out, while the other six
States, or part of them, were in COM
bination for any such objects.
On the point of the existence of a
regular system of armed opposition
to the laws, the minority says:
while we do not intend to deny
that bodies of disguised men have, in
several States of the South, been gull
~ of the most fragrant crimes-crimes
which we neither seek to palate nor
excuse, for the commission of which,
the wrong -doers should, when ascer-
tained and duly convicted, suffer
speedy and condign punishment-we
deny that these men have any general
organization, or any political signifi
canoe, or that their conduct is endorsed
by any respectable number of white
people in any State. On the contra
nv, the men and bands by which these
outrages are perpetrated are almost
universally regarded by the intelli-
gent people of the several States, as
che worst enemies of the South, as
they furnish the men now in power at
Washington the only excuse left to
maintain war upon them, and continue
the system of robbery and oppression
which they have inaugurated-a sys-
tenn which is destructive not only to
the peace and prosperity, but which is
intended to blacken and malign their
character as men before the country
and the world. *s
.' We will show by testimony incon-
troYertible, that in no one of the six
States of North and South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and
Florida, has there at any time existed
com binations of lawless men in one
tenth part of any one of these States.
These six States have in the aggregate
population of 4,972.738, and the
total number of their counties exceeds
420. We do not fear successful con-
tradiction- when we say that there
never was a disguised band in one
tenth part of them, or in over forty of
these 240 counties. Simply in
county here and there, or at most in
one or two counties together in sever
al of these States have such bands
committed depredations; and we will
show to all men, not blinded by preju-
dice or passion, that the lKu-Klux bill
and the conduct and report of the ma
joEity of this same committee. as in
augurated, continued and reported, is
the grossest outrage, the foulest cal
umny ever perpetrated or circulated
upon or against helpless people by
their rulers, who ought for that reason
if for no other, to be their friends in
stead of being. their relentless enemies
and calumniators."
AFEER THE WAR.
The minority report alludes to the
condition of affairs at the close of the
war; the Southern people acknowl-
edging their defeat, accepting the sit
uation and going to work earnestly to
build up their waste places and re-
trieve their lost fortunes. They are
determined, honestly and earnestly to
support defend and maintain the
Union and Constitution. Society in
the South was greatly disorganized.
The strain on the people to supply ar
mics in the field had exhausted their
resources. The regions which had
been the scene of active military OPP
erations were. laid waste. Starvation
stared the people in the face. Labor
was completely demoralized. The
negro population, which as slaves had
furnished the great bulk of labor, be-
ing liberated, in their poverty, igno-
rance and incapacity to appreciate the
effect of their altered condition, were
slow to realize the necessity of sus-
tanned and continuous labor on their
part, so that Confederate soldiers and
all others who had during the years
of the war devoted themselves to the
cause, found on the return of peace
nothing but poverty and ruin in the
land, and themselves absolutely beg
gars among a people who had nothing
to give. Under such circumstances,
it was impossible to restore harmony
in civil government without some
confusion. Yet SO earnestly did that
people struggle to return to their allie
glance, and thus entitle themselves to
the protection which had been prom
ised them from the day of the sur-