The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1872-01-19
THE KUK.LUXTRIALs.


The following remarks by Juag
e Bond, after listening to the confes.
: ion OF several OF the KuKIux pri:
oners recently on trial at Columbi:
South Carolina, are terse review c
: the Klau.
"You have pleaded guilty to a
indictment which charges you wit
conspiring, with other men through
out this State to Intimidate a Gel
tain class of voters By means @
threats, beating, and even killing
because that class of ciGizens wer
opposed to the conspiraters in pol
itical opinion,
"We acknowledge great perplex
ity in etermining what punishment
shall be meted out to you. w
have no words strong enough 10 sig
nifty our horror at the means employ
ed to csrry out the purpose .
the klans. Our difficulty is person.
al 10 you.
"You have, as it appears from you
statements to the Court, beer
brought up in the ID ,st deplo. o.ablt
Ignorance. At the age of manhood
but one or two Of yol can either
read or write, and you have lived in
a community where the evidence
seems to establish the fact that the
men OF prominence and education
those who by their superiority in
these respects establish and control
public oppinion-were for the most
part participants in the conspiracy.
or so much in terror OF il that you
could obtain from them neither Fro
lection nor advice, had you sought it
There is abundant proof of the
nature and character OF the conspir.
acy. Evidence of nightly rsids by
ban Is of disguised men, who broke
into the houses of negroes and drag
ged them from their beds-parents
aud children-and, tieiug them to
trees, numerically beat them, is ex-
hibited in every case. Murder. and
rape are not infrequent accomplish
ments, the story OF which is too in
cident for public mention. The per-
sons upon which these atrocities are
committed are almost always colored
people. Whatever excuse is given
for raid, its conclusion was Amos.
always accompanied by a rebuke for
the former exercise of the suffrage
and warning as to the future exer-
else Of the right to vote.
"But what is quite as appalling to
the Court as the horrible nature of
these ofIenses in the utter absence on
your part and on the part of others
who have made confession here of any
sense or feeling that you have done
nything very wrong in your confess
ed participation in outrages which are
outside OF the Indian
Territory.
"Some Of your comrades recite the
circumstances of brutal, unprovoked
murder, done by themselves, with as
little apparent abhorrenee as they
would relate the incidents of picnic,
and you yourselves speak of the num-
ber of blows with a hickory, which
you inflicted at midnight upon the
lacerated, bleeding back of defense
less woman, without so much as 8
blush or sigh of regret. None OF you
seem to have the slightest idea of, or
respect for, the sacredness of the hu-
man person. Some ofyou have your
selves been beaten by the klans with
out feeling smart but the physical
pain. There appears to be no wound
ing of the spirit; no such sense OF
injury to yourself as man az would
be felt by the humblest ot your fel
low citizens in any other part of the
United States with which / am &C
quainted.
"There the citizen upon whom such
outrages were perpetrated, stung to
madn ess by the insult to his msnhood,
would be swift to follow the wrong
loer to the end of the world to make
him atone for 1t. You make excuse
Tor this in your statement to the Court
that you are very ignorant; that the
klans would have beaten you, and
even killed you, had you refused to
oin them in their crimes. Some OF
vou now particularly before me have
suffered for your refusal, be-
'ore you really united in membership |
with them. The Court, In an endeav
,r to recognize some features of hu
nanity in you, has considered these
acts which you plead as excuses.
You have grown up in q country
where slavery existed for long time,
and where the whipping post was
standing institution.
"To see blacks fagellated was no
Unusual occurrence. The scene often
with its novelty lost its revolt
ne effect. And when it came to be
that the human person
vas not so sacred in the colored man
IS to secure immunity from outrage,
t did not take it long to lose its sa
,red character in yourselves, and in
Ill other men who, like the colored
nan, were obliged to labor. 1t must
De from this cause that your utter in
Inference to wrongs which, among
reemen would stir a fever IN the
blood OF age, arises.
Sand then you tell us that you dif-
er from many other persons of the
country in this, that it has always been
upon you, and the class to
which You belong, to look to persons
# wealth and education for command,
nd that you, in your ignorance, had
o follow such persons implicitly.
''It will appear strange to your fell
ow countrymen, who read your stcry
nd that of your confederates, however
Wiling they may be to believe you,
hat so large a portion of the young
White men OF your county can be in
uch state of abiect slavery to the
zen OF property above them, as to be
Wiling to commit murder at their
SIN no case has there been any re-
istence to these midnight raiders ex
;ept on the part ofthe colored people.
"You say some of you laid out in
he woods ght after night, and have
Iidden yourself in thickets to escape
hese marauders. None of you, how
ver, have had the manliness to de-
end your firesides from the assaults
f these lawless men. There has not
een, on your part, so far as the evil
ence shows, an assault and battery
ommitted in defense of family and
ONE and all that freemen hold dear.
admitting all you have SAID to the
'ourt to be true, while the story OF
our condition and OF your participa-
ion in these outrages through fear Is
ainful enough, the facts do not ex-
use you. They maypalliate, in some
egree, your offense, but they cannot
lstify. you. The punishment the
'ourt awards you is partly inflicted
hat you may learn that no amount of
hreats or fear of punishment will
lstify man in unprovoked violence
D another, unless the danger threat
ped to tie wrong doer be imminent
r actually present at the time OF
is wrong doing, and even then the
anger must be of present great bodily
arm, and of death itself, before some
{ the criminal conduct confessed