Year: 1868

There appears to be no longer any
doubt of the fact that the whole white
population of the South is becoming
organized for the basest of purposes.
The Kuklux klan is q reality; scarce a
night passes but they prove this by
murders and robberies-the victims be-
ing blacks or loyal whites.


Occasionally one of them-as young
Blair, of the city of Nashville-pays
dearly for villan;es committed; but
these are rare exceptions; the victims
are usually the innocent.


The reason for this is obvious. The
Kuklux are organized-the loyalists are
not; the kuklux are armed--armed, too
often by Enfield rifles stolen from re-
turned Union soldiers, black and white
while the Union people are not; and
as result there is impunity for this
second rebellion, for it is nothing less.


At first, the rebel press affected to
make merry over this movement; it was
the freak of few boys, who wanted
some relief from the monotony-not
of labor, but idleness--that was all, they
said. But murders and robberies are
rather serious matters, and finally the
fact OF the existence of the organization
became well established, and double
dealing was dropped, and now the
Southern press as boldly proclaim it a.
they formerly did of the Knights of tn,
Golden Circle.


The Richmond Enquirer of a late
date, says "that under its cap and bell
it hides purpose as resolute, noble
and heroic as that which Brutns con.
cealed beneath the mask of we'll dis
sembled idiotcy.''


By one or two extracts we shall show
better than by summary of its argu
ment, the hope of the journal we have
named, and how quick it would, if
were in its power, renew the confic
which has already desolated the South:


at is rapidly organizing wherever
the insolent negro, the malignant white
traitor to his race, and the infamous
squatter are plotting to make the South
utterly unfit for the residence Of the de-
cent white man. Itpromises, we hope,
to bring into the field for the defense of
our lives, liberty and property hundreds
of thousands of those heroic men who
have been tried and indurated by the
perils, dangers and sufferings of military
service"


We quote but one brief sentence in
addition to the above:


The first duty of a people whose lib
erty and property are menaced as ours
are by abandoned apost:tes, greedy
squatters and insolent negroes. is to or
ganize with such promptitude and stern
resolution as to strike terror into the
guilty souls Of the secret negro societies
and their delegates in the Convention"
and the next will be a lesson to these
criminals which will teach them that
the men who for nearly four years de-
flied the armies of a powerful govern
ment, will not submit to political out
lawry and negro squatter domination,
and to dishonor and degradation in .
hundred different forms, in q State
which they have made famous by their
great and many virtues, and where the
white race has reigned supreme since it
was wrested from the hands Of . people
superior in every brave and manly quail
ity to those which God has branded with
marks of intellectual and physical infe-
riority to all other races Of men.


We will add nothing to this. Il
needs no comment; the words are the
words of two thirds Of the white people
of the South, and it viii be well for the
loyal people of the nation to ponder
them.