New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-08-22
THE RESTORATION OF Law And ORDER
IN THE SOUTH.

A careful letter from North Carolina which we
print on our second page, gives an account of
the rise, the history, and the disappearance of
the Ku-Klux in that State. 1t will repay read
ing as it shows the view entertained by the
Conservatives of the South in regard to the
provocations and peculiar circumstances which
called that organization into existence, and ex-
planned, while they could not justify, many of
their acts. We have spoken with some def
niteness and energy in regard to the outrages
by which q few scattered ruffans made the
name of Ku-Klux word of horror and infa-
my throughout the South. We have nothing
to retract of all we have said in regard to this
subject. But as earnestly as we condemned
the order and all its works while it was in
operation, so earnestly do we rejoice
at its disappearance and hail its disintegratiOn
az the best proof of the peaceable and orderly
intentions of the people of the South. The
ruffianism which for little while survived
the Rebellion is now at an end. The hatred
of race, the violation of private property, the
organized tyranny of numbers, are not entirely
gone, but their manifestations are seen rather
in the action of the carpet-bag administra-
tons and their parasites than in the lawless
this hour and for more than a year past, the
white people of the Southern States and the
more intelligent among the blacks are more
faithfully devoted to a restoration of peace,
law, and honest legislation than are their
governments or their Congressman, who rely
upon bribery and the bayonet to sustain and
strengthen them in power.
1t is deeply to be regretted that the vi0-
lence of party spirit at this moment should
prevent any one from doing justice to the
dignifed and law-abiding attitude of the better
portion of the Southern people. Ever since
the beginning of q movement which held out
to them the hope of restoration of friendly
relations between them and the people of the
North, they have given to us and the world
the example of an admirable dignity and
patience under well-nigh intolerable outrage.
We have published few of the countless
incidents of petty tyranny and spoliation which
they have suffered in silence in the hope of
better things. They have endured Casey in
New-Oreans, and Clayton and Hadley in
Arkansas, and the carriers Of the carpet
bag from Mississippi to North Carolina,
seeing them override law, steal and per-
lure themselves, violate the Treasury and
the ballot-box, set free the guilty and lock up
the innocent, as if this were the thirteenth
century, and they were the chiefs of savage
tribes whose will was law. Yet in spite of
these Infamous provocations, lawlessness and
Ku-Kluxism have been steadily dying away.
The Southern people seemed determined to allow
their plunderers monopoly of wrong-doing.
The horrible outrage in Arkansas, where
conspiracy of Grant officers murdered two
quiet citizens on the highway for the purpose
of provoking an outbreak, resulted only in an
orderly public meeting, in which the people of
the county testified their devotion to the law,
and protested against the military oc-
cupation of their homes. Such mode
ration, such wise reserve under such
grievous wrong would be scarcely possible
were 1t not that the people Of the South
begin to recognize that for them also new
era Ii dawning. The twelve years war is to
end The fruits of the war are all safely gar
nered and secured byl irreversible amend
ments to the Constitution. They have como
frankly forward and accepted these, and de.
clared that they had no thought or desire of
reversing them. They have joined with
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