The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1872-10-18


such execrable outrage as this. Do you tell
me that those men are liable to State laws
for the assaults and batteries they have
committed? | don't doubt it; but l say
they are also, in substance and in purpose,
traitors to the Government, rebels against
its authority, and the most cowardly, skulk-
ing rebels ever known in this or any other
country. [Applause.]
hold our Government bound, by It's
duty ofprotecting our citzensi lin their iunda-
mental rights, to pass and enforce laws for
the extirpation of the execrable Ku-Klux
conspiracy and il has not power to do it,
then say our Government is no govern
ment, but a sham. therefore, on eveay &C.
casion, advocated and justified the Ku-Klux
act. hold it especially desirable for the
South and if il does not prove strong enough
to effect its purpose, hope it will be made
stronger and stronger. [Applause]
"Why, fellow-ctizens, these very men
that asked me if | saw any Ku-Klux have
themselves read the returns the last Tres
idental election in Louisiana, when that
State, with 10000 black majority on its
registers, was made to vote for Seymour and
Blair by more tkan 80 900 majority counties
which had 5000 negro voters alone giving
three, two, one, and in several instances no
vote at all, for Grant and Colfax. Now,
friends, you and they know perfectly well
that this result was secured by terror and
violence; by telling them You shall vote
for Seymour and Blair, the enemies OF your
fundamental rights, or you shall not vote at
all, or you shall be killed. That was the
way Louisiana was made Democratic in 1865,
and that is the way that trust she will
never be made TO vote again. Therefore
uphold and justify the Ku-Klux law.
Fellow citizens, the Ku Klux are no
myth, although they shroud themselves in
darkness. They are not fitting ghosts; they
are baneful reality. They have paralyzed
the right of suffrage in many counties
throughout the South, and they have oar
ried States that they ought not to have car
ried."
The evidence taken before the Congressional
| Investigating Committee, who made their re-
port in February last, shows every form oil
| outrage, torture, and murder.
In fourteen counties of North Carolina
eighteen murders were done, and 3l5 whip
pings occurred in nine counties in South
Carolina, forty murders and over 1000 other
! outrages in twenty-nine counties OF GEORGIA.
seventy-two murders and l26 whippings; in
| twenty six counties of Alabama, 2l5 muir
ders and ll6 other outrages; in twenty
counties of Mississippi, twenty-three muir
ders and seventy-sx other outrsges; and IN
single county of Florida, 1853 murders.
ders were done, 299 other acts of violence
Yet, OF all this history written in blood
Gov. Brown seems utterly eblivious, and
| endeavors 10 conceal this black mountain OF
crime and horror by blowing up before the
public eve the bladder of secret negro organi-
cation, which never hurt anybody, never
threatened to, which no sensible man wa:
aver afraid of, and which was long ago dis
solved in oil the disturbed districts Of the
South. The man who conceals the Ku- KluS
becomes, in the judgment of the world, {
party to their organization and Gov
4 Brown, while not recognizing their existence
endeavors 80 frame excuses ans apologies
for them which are frivolous as well as un
founded.
| WHITE PREJUDICE AGAINST THE BLACK.
But running all through the two speeche
of Gov. Brown, while formally profess
ing regard for the political and civil right
Of the colored people, is very manifest sn'
persistent appeal to the old pre- udice of the
white man against the negro.
Dispairing of getting any portion OF thu
colored vote, he attempts to excite the hatred
and jealousy Of the white race against th'
colored by pretending that there is deep
laid scheme to make the white man subordi
nate to the negro, to humiliate the Whit
race by the elevation of the black to power
speeches few formal phrases intended t
protect them from the charge Of Brick-Pome
roy Bourbonism, they are such speeches a
mi ght have been made by Mr.. Hsndrlck
and Mr.. Voorhees, year or two ago, an,
are direct appeals TO the hatred and to tn
lowest passions of the white against tb
black race. "To this complexion has
come at last'-the candidate for the Vic
Presidency invokes that spirit of hate, cast
and bigotry which places inscriptions owe
wagons loaded with young ladies: -" Father:
save us from negro husbands Brothers
protect US from negro equality" whic
burned negro orphan asylums and hun
negro women to lamp posts, which has de
stroyed negro school houses all through tn
South, and is the breath of life in the no,
tris of the demons Of the Ku-Klux.
CARPET-BAGGERs.
) Again, Gov. Brown assails the recon
, structed State Government as having bee
organized by carpet-baggers, plunderers
and adventures, who went down there
steal and remained only until they wer
gorged, then to return TO the North wit
their stolen goods. In all this there is but
small element of truth, and for that elemer
nobody is responsible hut the friends {
Gov. Brown, North and South. Whe
, the work of reconstruction began under tn
laws oil CONGRESS- utdl Oil NhOSo "hO IL
been engaged in the REBEL on refused to tax
part in II, stood aloof, declared the action {
= Congress unconstitutional, and protested
wash their hands of the whole business, i
some States refusing even to vote one wa
or the other, but in all unanimously oppos
ing reconstruction. This necessarily thre'
the work Of reconstruction into the hands {
the colored men, the few white men of tn
South called ",calawags," and those VIII
= emgrated from the North to the South
1 called " carpet-baggers." If the politician
4 of the South had not with stupid malice re
: fused to take part in reconstruction. tn
5 o.called carpet-baggers" of the Mort
n would have had but little to do with it, an
4 the State Governments of the South woul
from the first have been in the hands of tn
4 late rebels, the friends now of Co
: Brown. But when they stood afar off, an
8 did everything in their power to oppose, th
: work of reconstruction had 70 be done b
}, those into whose hands it fell, or not be dor
d at all. Doubtless some Of the so-calle
e 4" carpet baggers" were not proper person
n were adventures seeking their own for
It tunes but others, and the majority Of then
: were true emigrants, and would have re
j NAMED in the South and become her mo
u valuable citizens, as many Of them hay
= done anyhow, had they not been persecut,
= at every step by their rebel enemies, houn,
IS ed on by Northern allies. The new Stats
:, of the Union have generally been fill,